The manual for English pronunciation instruction is designed for use in intensive language courses for Southeast Asians learning English as a Second Language. An introductory section suggests classroom presentation and lesson planning techniques and gives background information on English phonology and pronunciation instruction. A variety of…

Tests are intended to assess performance of students. However, tests can also be used as an educational tool. Current patterns in education have produced a group of students with weak learning skills, limited confidence in their own abilities, an underlying hostility or distrust of the educational system, and an inhibited attitude towards…

A computerized grammar checker was developed to assist teachers of English as a Second Language in editing student compositions. The first stage of development consisted of an error analysis of 125 writing samples collected from students. The 1,659 errors found were classified into 14 main types and 93 subtypes. This analysis served as the basis…

A study investigated the responses of students of English as a Second Language (ESL) to teachers' written comments on essay drafts. Subjects were 15 students in intensive college ESL courses. The students wrote essay drafts, which were turned in to teachers for graded comments. The students were then interviewed within three days after receiving…

This study investigated the effects of teacher feedback on changes in the spoken language performance of a group of advanced learners of English in the Netherlands. Participants were medical researchers attending a course entitled English for Medical Congresses. The course included a sequence of speaking tasks and culminated in a conference. Tasks…

A study assessed whether community college students revise their writing more effectively if they are supported during the revision learning process by comments that point out the writing flaws in their texts and then provide suggestions on how to revise these flaws. Subjects, 28 first- and second-year students enrolled in an Introduction to…

This paper discusses the interlanguage conversation as a process in an institutional setting. The interaction type in question is language proficiency interview and the material discussed is a series of interviews of French second language learners whose mother tongue is either Finnish or Swedish. These interviews are compared to non-evaluative…

The process oriented approach to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction has spurred such new ideas as student instruction and the whole language approach. New thinking justifies the validity of qualitative research, which lets researchers view subjects' learning processes from previously impossible angles. This paper examines ESL writing…

A coding system expediting grading of student reports in a marketing class is described. The system uses twelve codes corresponding to constructive criticisms of content and form, allowing the teacher to comment while reading and to read more efficiently. A brief summary can also be included. Most frequent codes are recorded in the gradebook to…

Discusses the nature of good writing strategies, illustrates principles of correction and evaluation, and describes the elements of a writing curriculum for college students of Italian. The author suggests a series of writing activities and evaluation criteria to assess writing proficiency at beginning and intermediate levels. (26 references) (CK)

An electronic mail project designed to create personal dialogue between native speakers and college students in a modern French civilization course is described. It was found that French participants added nuance to generalizations about their culture and brought understanding to certain historical events occurring during the course. Linguistic…

Presents a study that analyzed errors made by randomly chosen fourth grade students (25 of 57) while using the division algorithm and investigated the effect of remediation on identified systematic errors. Results affirm that error pattern diagnosis and directed remediation lead to new learning and long-term retention. (MDH)

The efficiency of oral error correction was investigated as a function of 35 Dutch-speaking high school seniors' individual characteristics of aptitude, motivation, anxiety, and previous achievement. Results were mixed but generally suggest that error correction does not lead to across-the-board improvement of achievement. (Contains 55…

Looks at how speech-interactive computer-assisted language learning can help the classroom teacher carry out recommendations from immersion-based approaches to language instruction. Emerging methods for pronunciation tutoring are demonstrated from Carnegie Mellon University's FLUENCY project, addressing not only phone articulation but also speech…

Explores the effect of individual speaking style on the self-correction behavior of second-language speakers. The project involved 30 Hungarian learners of English studying at various levels of proficiency and made use of self-report data. (Author/VWL)