Features excerpts from selected articles that reflect major trends in English language teaching during the past 40 years. One proposes a new attitude toward teaching, one offers a new teaching technique, another focuses on the importance of language functions, and the last describes a procedure for correcting grammar exercises. (Author/VWL)

Poses four important questions relevant to error diagnosis and correction in computer assisted language learning (CALL). These questions relate to the diagnosis of persistent second language (L2) learner grammar errors, whether these can be corrected, what types of feedback from the computer are most efficient for focusing the students' attention…

Presents research conducted within the Freetext project to build an automatic error diagnosis system for learners of French as a foreign language. Review the main features of the project and the learner corpus collected and used within the project, focuses on the error diagnosis system and specifically on a syntactic checker. (Author/VWL)

Uses a conversation analytic framework to analyze a practice used by teachers in 1-0-1, second language writing conferences when eliciting self-correction of students' written language errors. This type of turn used to elicit a knowledge display from the student is labeled designedly incomplete utterance (DIU). Teachers use DIUs made up of…

Describes a model called EPOSODE (Enhanced Procedural Orchestration through Student Observation and Detection of Errors) that uses performance errors to teach and assess procedural knowledge via computer-based interactive video (CBIV) technology. Two prototypes based on EPOSODE are described, and Anderson's theory of procedural knowledge is…

Argues that recent teaching strategies geared toward improving student writing through positive reinforcement have resulted in mediocre writing products. Suggests that mechanics be given the same value as content in the evaluation process. (KEH)

Discusses the range of disciplinary traditions that underlie many current second-language acquisition models, and attempts to identify some of the issues that these models have generated. (104 references) (GLR)

Compares the number and type of implanted errors corrected by high school and college subjects working on two different texts under three different conditions. Finds that the biggest stumbling block in correcting errors was not the knowledge of how to correct them, but rather a failure to detect them. (RS)

Maintains that most of the claims made by Morrison, Morrison, and Keating do not undermine the data analysis and conclusion of a study reported in a 1988 paper. Discusses (1) evidence concerning a common rate of developmental change; (2) functions that characterize developmental stages; and (3) procedures for estimating parameters. (LB)

A study is reported that aimed to develop an instrument based on cues speakers use to support each other during the verbal elaboration of a topic of conversation and to test its effect on the development of writers' abilities to elaborate during revision. (Author/LB)

Investigated the extent to which form-focused instruction and corrective feedback (i.e., "input enhancement"), provided within a primarily communicative program, contribute to learners' accuracy in question formation. Study results are interpreted as evidence that input enhancement can bring about genuine changes in learners' interlanguage…

Numerous cases are used to illustrate language mistakes made by Hebrew-speaking students learning English. Teachers' and students' reactions to error correction are discussed, and some linguistic reasons for errors (e.g., mother-tongue interference) are suggested. (12 references) (LB)

Constructs a corrective learning system using the Socratic dialogue as a guide to correct mistakes in students' knowledge of subtraction. The Socratic dialog applies a dialectic method to present questions to the student and lets the student reconsider his or her own thinking. Results show that the Socratic-dialog approach is of great help to…

Argues that oral grammar correction in second-language classrooms produces overwhelming problems both in making corrections and dealing with their harmful side effects, and that the practice should be discontinued. Research evidence suggests that oral correction does not improve learners' ability to speak grammatically, and no good reasons have…

Discusses the performance of 11th-grade students from Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad (n=1216) on an Errors in Biological Labeling Test (EBLT). Concludes that performance was low in six categories of errors, and that girls performed significantly better on each category of error than did boys. Contains 15…