A stage of research is reported in which teachers assessed the performance of 15 boys and girls who participated in group discussions as part of the General Certificate of Secondary Education English oral examination. Teachers were found to use different criteria to evaluate the contributions of boys compared to girls. (nine references) (Author/LB)

Argues that native English speakers who work in the Third World as academic or technical experts often face conflicts with locals because of communications difficulties arising out of differing understandings of linguistic code. It is suggested that native English speakers should undergo training in interethnic and intercultural communications…

Reports on a project incorporating pragmatic analysis into the second language classroom. Cooperative learning groups of first-year ESL students in a composition class analyzed variation in the use of linguistic features across a set of texts. Exercises of this type are asserted to be useful in promoting awareness of the different potential uses…

Examines the background and roots of the Welsh language and how it is being kept in existence and its usage increased. The maintenance of the Welsh language through literature, education, and journalism is described; radio and television broadcasting in Welsh is reviewed; and other influences are examined. (12 references) (LRW)

Discusses radio and television programing in Finland by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) and describes programs that have been developed to cover the country's three official languages: Finnish, Swedish, and Saame. Language courses offered by the YLE are described, and the importance of languages in the community is considered. (LRW)

Reviews research on the social interaction and negotiation of second language (L2) learners and their interlocutors. This research illustrates ways in which negotiation contributes to conditions, processes, and outcomes of L2 learning by facilitating learners' comprehension and structural segmentation of L2 input, access to lexical form and…

Presents quantitative data emerging from a study of Inuit classroom interactions and discourse patterns. The research focuses on the transformational effects of the incorporation of culturally congruous social interaction patterns and the promotion of traditional values on these two aspects of Inuit classroom conversations. (19 references)…

Discusses the need to provide learner-directed computer-assisted language learning (CALL) for mature students to perfect their English. Topics addressed include expert procedural knowledge, including lexical, grammatical, and discourse skills; and expert domain knowledge, including dictionaries and thesauri, tagged corpora, and discipline-specific…

Cultural stereotypes that interpret girls as less forceful or less assertive than boys in pursuing their own agendas, particularly during conflict episodes, are questioned. A theory of double-voice discourse is proposed to characterize a type of conflict talk that has a dual orientation, and examples for three- and four-year-old girls' talk are…

A model for assessing communicative ability is presented that is prompted by the fact that most error analysts in the past concentrated on morphemic and syntactic levels. It is suggested that emphasis must shift from acquisition of linguistic competence per se to communicative competence. (23 references) (LB)

Summaries of seven language-related research projects are presented from Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Topics include a lexicon of Kelabit, cognitive theory for second-language acquisition, academic writing in Filipino, cultural politics of English instruction, use of conjunctions, and communicative grammar. (LB)

A study investigated differences in English word recognition in native speakers of Indonesian (an alphabetic language) and Chinese (a logographic languages) learning English as a Second Language. Results largely confirmed the hypothesis that an alphabetic first language would predict better word recognition in speakers of an alphabetic language,…

A study analyzed and compared the discourse of electronic mail messages from commercial and academic environments. Key text features were examined for style and convention patterns. Results suggest commercial messages follow normal conventions for standard written business English, and academic users may view the medium as a pseudo-conversational…

A study examined frequency of active, passive verb forms in two astrophysics journal articles, finding "we" plus an active voice occurs at least as frequently as the passive. This pattern typifies a previously unidentified type of research article, the logical argument scientific paper, whose characteristics are detailed. Similar pattern…

Discusses results of a cross-sectional study that examined the phenomenon of referentiality in the acquisition of English as a foreign language by Francophone English-major college students in Burkina Faso. The research focused on the acquisition of the English article system. A cloze test of 107 items was used to collect the data. Demographic…