An examination of the effectiveness of the use of various computer-based communication tools (commercial computer conferences, bulletin boards, word processors, outline processors, and electronic dictionaries) in developing college students' Spanish proficiency suggested that computers offered potential for enhancing the writing process. (38…

The oral foundations of narrative knowledge are examined as a linkage to literacy acquisition problems. Examined are kinds of narrative knowledge acquired, the nature of story organization, and developmental acquisitions in story recall and generation. The performance patterns of language learning-disabled children on oral story recall and…

Writing samples of 295 primary school children improved in productivity, syntax, and level of abstraction from grade one through three. The writing of learning-disabled children who were matched with average reading ability primary-school children indicated no significant differences in productivity, but problems in syntax (especially morphology),…

A discussion of young children's revision strategies exlores four topics: a theory of written language, the development of writing, children's understanding of spoken and written language, and the context of writing. (RJC)

Reappraises conventional distinctions between oral-like and literate-like discourse, particularly Tannen's distinction between involvement focus and message focus. Treats message as an embodiment of involvement, and cohesion as an aspect of a developing writer-reader relationship. Offers speculations for rethinking "literate…

A quantitative analysis of the use of conjuncts in two genres of written English, business news stories and academic journal articles, revealed a much higher frequency of conjunct use in the journal articles. A brief discussion focuses on the pedagogical implications of this study, and suggestions for further research are presented. (26…

Analysis of five biology and five biochemistry professional journal articles' use of the English present perfect tense revealed that both disciplines used the tense most frequently in the introduction and discussion sections, typically conveying the meaning of a past experience with current relevance. (CB)

Examination of the reliability and validity of paper-and-pencil pronunciation tests of English as a second language in Osaka (Japan) showed very low reliability. Correlations with more direct measures of pronunciation showed very low validity of written pronunciation tests. Sample tests are appended. (Author/CB)

An historical account of the use of the acute accent mark in written Spanish discusses the effects of Greek, Latin, Italian, and French precursors on the early use of the accent and on its current modern use. (CB)

Compares holistic scoring of nonnative writing in English with multiple trait assessment and scoring. (JL)

This article presents a survey and analysis of Examiners' Reports on French written papers, looking specifically at difficulties in using verbs appropriately. It draws on evidence from second-language acquisition research to determine the nature of the problem and hypothesizes links between the decline in written accuracy and the rise in oral…

Multilevel analyses compared performances of 12 deaf Jamaican adolescents (ages 15 and 16) and 12 hearing adolescents (ages 13 and 14) on writing, reading, and (for deaf subjects) sign language tasks. The deaf adolescents' ability to express complex ideas in sign language supported the need for use of a bilingual approach to the teaching of…

This study focused on the input-to-intake phenomenon: Can foreign language/second language (L2) learner-readers process grammatical information presented via written input as intake? Multiple tasks were designed to assess the processing of input into intake by first- and second-year students of Spanish. (JL)

Examined 37 written and oral narrative pairs produced in a film retell task by college-level learners of English as a Second Language. Results found a developmental pattern in the distribution of tense/aspect morphology with respect to narrative structure. (contains 41 references) (MDM)

This study of normally achieving second graders, language-learning-disabled children, and adults with literacy problems (total n=27) found that morphological knowledge in spoken language was highly related to morpheme use in written language samples. Results suggest that morphological knowledge does not develop solely as a function of maturation…