Reviews some of the problems relevant to the teaching of language use and discusses pragmatic consciousness raising (PCR) as one alternative in teacher education for dealing with pragmatics in the classroom. (Author/JL)

Addresses a number of issues that have to do with nature of mental representation of an interlanguage grammar. Major focus is on necessity of positing some sort of hierarchical constituent structure to account for what second-language learners do in their phonology. The purpose is to show the utility of invoking a theory of abstract phonological…

To find out more about bilingual children's narrative discourse acquisition, study analyzes and compares the oral narrative discourse of bilingual and monolingual 5- to 10-year-olds in two ways. Uses Labov's taxonomy to measure evaluation, and shema theory to do an episodic analysis of elicited narratives. Argues that these frameworks serve to…

Investigates effects of second-language acquisition age, length of exposure to the second language, and Japanese language specificity on the bilingual dual coding hypothesis proposed by Paivio and Desrochers (1980). Balanced Japanese-English bilingual returnee (having resided in an English-speaking country) subjects were presented with pictures to…

Responses from about 40 teachers receiving training in adult basic education and English for speakers of other languages found that (1) they sought practical/procedural knowledge; (2) few seemed aware of issues of literacy, culture, and power; and (3) they wanted to understand the difference between first- and second-language development. (SK)

Discusses how a teacher of sixth- and seventh-grade primarily Mexican immigrants: (1) models being a second-language learner by working at Spanish; (2) provides an enjoyable school experience; (3) learns about students' culture and gives it respect; (4) seeks a detailed picture of where each English learner is academically; and (5) cultivates a…

This study investigated sensitivity to morphological, semantic, and syntactic cues to grammatical gender among 64 students of college-level Italian. Results showed sensitivity to cues in word-final phonemes, but low awareness of gender associations of derivational suffixes. Students had more difficulty dealing with multiple cues, particularly when…

Project Genexus is an initiative to provide critical information and mentoring to new faculty members, aiding in the transition from graduate student to professor by conferring on teaching and other professional interests, connecting with experienced mentors, and building a support community through computer conferencing and an Internet listserv.…

An oral testing method used in an intensive high school Spanish program is based on a model of communicative competence positing four forms of competence: strategic; sociolinguistic; discourse; and linguistic. All oral domains but linguistic are tested in the first and second years. In the first year, benchmark testing occurs. The rubric used has…

An experiment compared group oral protocols of 37 native English-speaking subjects enrolled in a fourth-semester college French course making grammaticality judgments in English and French. Results indicate the subjects do not necessarily use the same strategies in rendering grammaticality judgments in first and second languages, casting doubt on…

Introduces an issue dedicated to enhancing the social and academic achievement of immigrant secondary school students, explaining challenges such students face related to the English language; noting their need for access to information and school structures that facilitate both their academic and their social lives; and describing teachers' roles…

Often, American Indian and Alaska Native children do not learn their tribal languages as first languages. Therefore, schools can play a pivotal role in reversing language shift by addressing circumstances specific to second language learning. The field of second language acquisition and teaching can provide teachers of indigenous languages with…

Proposes the use of usability testing to systematically evaluate instructor-developed materials. Discusses the application of this methods in the field of computer-assisted language learning using a multimedia CD-Rom project that was designed to improve the skills of international graduate students at Ohio University (Author/VWL)

Examined differences between native and nonnative English-as-a-foreign-language teachers' rating of the English writing of Chinese university students. Explored whether two groups of teachers--expatriates who typically speak English as their first language and ethnic Chinese with proficiency in English--gave similar scores to the same writing task…

Discusses implementation of computer-mediated-communication (CMC) and the language computing skills students need to acquire for cross-cultural e-mail exchanges. CMC syllabus design within the Japanese English-as-a-foreign-language university context and within a second language acquisition research framework is also discussed. (Author/VWL)