Explored motivation and learning preferences of 336 high school students in Morocco regarding learning English as a foreign language. Students had well-defined and coherent learning preferences, with a five-factor model of motivation that were not completely in agreement with their teachers' preferences. Implications for learner-centered…

Discusses how 4 teachers handle writing assignments, response, grading, portfolios, time allotted for completion of assignments, and classroom environment for English-as-a-second-language students. (RS)

Shows how one teacher skillfully integrates vocabulary instruction with his subject matter teaching. The teacher links the target vocabulary to the students' experiences and concentrates on word meanings and their written and oral forms and syntactic behavior, pushing students to accurate use of the words in context. (12 references) (Author/CK)

Examines the relationship between anxiety and native-language skill and foreign-language aptitude measures among high school foreign-language learners using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). Findings suggest that skill in one's native language may affect aptitude for learning a foreign language and that the FLCAS may provide an…

This article presents an interesting way to focus on diversity in second-language instruction and methods classes. The method involves taking students on field trips to such events as cultural fairs; observing holidays, such as the Chinese New Year; and visiting homeless shelters, foreign restaurants, and houses of worship for different faiths.…

Discusses the relevance for the valid testing of reading of the difference between a 'unitary skill' approach to reading and a multiskills approach. The article produces evidence suggesting that a distinction may be drawn between language-based skills and 'global' reading skills. (55 references) (Author/CK)

Studied the relationships between the personality types of a group of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) students in Indonesia and various measures of their academic performance in a course with EFL language measures. Students were almost evenly divided between extroverts and introverts with a distribution of types similar to those of…

Discusses a study of concord phenomena in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Findings indicate the presence of disfluencies, including apparent corrections, in about 15% of the relevant tokens in the corpus of recorded speech data. It is concluded that speech is not overly laden with errors, and there is nothing in the data to mislead the language…

Investigated the relationship between Chinese character recognition and production by second-language learners. Subjects were 47 first-year Chinese language students in the United States. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Discusses a collaboration in the design and implementation of student portfolios to examine growth in foreign-language proficiency. Analysis of the portfolios showed that many factors should be considered by teachers in deciding on contents and objectives of the portfolios. (Author/JL)

Assesses the effect of a program of communicative language teaching on foreign-language (FL) acquisition in the United States. The article describes the frustration of FL teachers and students at students' difficulty in reaching senior-level status and suggests that colleges require FL majors to spend a year in an immersion program in countries…

Reviews psychological aspects relevant to second language (L2) vocabulary list learning and reports on an experiment conducted with high school students learning French. Findings reveal that presenting vocabulary items in first language-second language order is the more versatile form of presentation if both production and comprehension of L2…

Nonword span (nonwords conforming to English phonology) was used to measure phonological memory and was found to be generally predictive of the number of trials needed for acquiring certain English (second-language) new words for 84 Hong Kong seventh graders. This relationship, however, was preserved only in those students whose English vocabulary…

Reviews research that provides evidence that nonnative speakers of English in the United States use English a great deal and have acquired it very well. Misreporting of facts has suggested that immigrants are not acquiring English. English as a Second Language classes do facilitate the development of conversational language. (SLD)

Extends previous research on the relative effects of input processing and output processing on the use of Spanish clitic pronouns. Results of a repeated measures analysis of variance reveal that input and output processing students significantly explored their scores on various comprehension tests compared to a control group. (35 references)…