Studies the role played by native language transfer and task formality in the second-language acquisition of the Spanish voiced stop phonemes /b d g/ and their spirantized variants to identify specific problems affecting learners. Results indicate that native language transfer markedly inhibits acquisition of the voiced spirants. (21 references)…

Summaries of five language-related research projects are presented from Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Topics include teaching/learning Bahasa Malaysia; English-language programs in Malaysian teacher education colleges; interlanguage variability in verbs; reading/writing theories; and cross-cultural strategies and English in written business…

Discusses research regarding College of Liberal Arts students at the University of Minnesota where there are proficiency requirement-based second-language programs. Research results provide data that compare qualitative results on reading, listening, writing, and speaking proficiency tests of students from the proficiency requirement program at…

Studied the effect of grading classroom communicative activities on student performance at two different levels. Results indicated no significant difference in scores between the experimental and control groups at either level. (10 references) (VWL)

Examined the role of exposure to speech in children's vocabulary growth. Characterized vocabulary growth rates for children from 14 to 26 months of age. Found a relation between individual differences in vocabulary acquisition and variations in the amount of a mother's speech to her children. (BC)

The expressions of the English modal auxiliaries "can,""could,""may," and "might" by 75 Panjabi-speaking students were studied. Students who were exposed to English at an earlier age showed better comprehension of verb forms. Modal acquisition by these second-language students mirrored that observed in…

The role of four cues in the assignment of actor role in Arabic was studied. Fifty-four sentences representing all possible permutations of the cues were presented to 100 native speakers of Arabic who were asked to identify the actor in each sentence. (Contains 41 references.) (JL)

This report discusses an investigation on the processes involved in the acquisition of French by students in late immersion programs in Australia. An ethnographic style of data collection was used in the study, which covered a full year. (Contains 14 references.) (JL)

Reports findings from a critical analysis of English grammar books and language books with grammar content used in New South Wales (Australia) elementary and secondary schools. Books surveyed showed a low level of awareness of developments in contemporary linguistics, particularly the structural approach to grammar instruction. (Author/MSE)

Analysis of English stress patterns and perceptual pattern of the six Vietnamese tones in code-switching reveals a significant proportion of the high tone group at the point of switching. This, together with the phonological compatibility between Vietnamese tones of high- and mid-level pitch and English stressed/unstressed syllable patterns,…

Considers how research into researchers' theories in English language teaching (ELT) can enhance our understanding of instruction and provide the basis of effective teacher-development work. The nature of teachers' theories is illustrated with examples from classroom research on grammar teaching. Discusses a study conducted with five…

Traces the development of "Australian English" from the 1940s to the present time, noting a radical change in both public and individual acceptance. Briefly surveys the extent of the scholarly documentation of Australian English in dictionaries and style manuals, and addresses the question of Australianness in a range of text types and…

Gaze during utterance was examined in a set of bilingual-bimodal twins acquiring spoken English and American Sign Language (ASL) and a set of monolingual twins acquiring ASL. The bilingual-bimodal twins differentiated their languages by age 3. Like the monolingual twins, the bilingual-bimodal twins established mutual gaze at the beginning of their…

Proposes a language-socialization approach to the study of second-language acquisition and illustrates the application of this approach by analyzing non-instructional discourse between native and nonnative speakers of Spanish. Analysis draws from a corpus of videotaped data collected during a two-year participant-observer study at a Los Angeles…

A study investigated the syntax and semantics of the word "until" in Standard British English and Singapore English. While the word is used similarly in the two languages, it has uses in Singapore English not available in Standard Spoken English, paralleling the word "dao" in Chinese and suggesting a substrate influence that is…