Examines the sometimes puzzling behavior of writing teachers as they look for errors in language usage. Questions whether many of these teachers would notice the occurrence of certain features they call errors if they were not searching for errors in the first place. (RL)

Concludes that the use of anaphoric expressions (pronouns) in some instances will interfere with the reading comprehension of eighth-grade students. (FL)

Explains why humor should be studied in English classrooms and how humorous writing serves as a vehicle for making its readers more socially conscious of human values. Offers a list of books that can be used in classroom discussions of humor. (RL)

Reports three experiments which investigated the ability of children aged four to nine years to organize body-location information in recall. Attempted to correct for methodological confounding in previous similar research. (JMB)

Ascertained whether chemistry instructors have a consistent preference for particular ways of idea expression by chemistry students. Comparisons of responses on a chemistry preference test were made among chemistry instructors, chemistry majors and nonscience majors. (CS)

The parameters that help learners decipher imperfective usage (particularly KF) in Russian are described. Subcategories of KF which do not overlap are analyzed through their contextual usage in detective stories. Suggestions are made for helping learners decode KF in speech and writing. (PMJ)

Methods of second language instruction that actively integrate common language usage are encouraged, as opposed to those that reduce language to phraseological inventories. The former approach is deemed essential to developing communicative competence. (MSE)

Teaching modern standard English means eliminating instruction of outmoded or questionable usage distinctions so that more time can be devoted to spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure. (Author)

Outlines a procedure for predicting the appropriateness of signing as a communicative technique for individuals with speaking impairments. The procedure compares a potential learner's motor control with those necessary for the handshapes, location, and movements of a compiled vocabulary. A procedure for predicting future possible vocabulary is…

Discusses two basic areas of difference between British and American English, namely the complementation of certain participles and the complementation of certain verbs. Complementation after "concerned" and "interested" is illustrated by several examples taken from speech and from newspaper advertisements. (AMH)

Discusses the difficulty in recognizing and expressing the formation of concession and counter-assertion. Words like "although" and "if," while familiar in other contexts, present problems when used for these functions. While the markers for concession are interchangeable, those for counter-assertion are not. Two different types of…

"Bu" can negate noun phrases. This article attempts to determine what the parent structures are from which noun-bu-noun is derived, to describe the general property of N-bu-N, to examine the conditions under which N-bu-N is used, and to contrast it with other structures of similar usage. (Author/PJM)

Comments on the relationship between secondary and postsecondary education in Ontario, Canada--the subject of a massive study undertaken by the provincial government. (RL)

Describes the characteristics of academic language (mature expository prose; the formal English of college textbooks). Discusses theoretical and practical issues involved in the procedures for selecting and teaching academic vocabulary, and suggests teaching ideas, techniques, and materials. (RL)

Suggests an exercise to help students stop using incorrect word forms, which involves students in choosing a word, defining it, using it correctly in a sentence, and finding five other words using the original word as a root. (TJ)