Compares the French language competence of Ontario high school immersion graduates with that of core program graduates of a six-week summer course in a francophone environment. The immersion graduates performed functions well, but at the expense of accuracy, while summer students showed fewer discrepancies in speaking skills. (Author/CB)

Reports on two studies of minority language children enrolled in a Toronto, Canada, bilingual (English-French) program. The study indicated that focus on the maintenance and development of students' heritage language with specific reference to literacy learning enhanced the learning of French, a third language for the minority language students.…

Documents the differences in language acquisition and school achievement between Finnish- and Swedish-speaking students in Finland's comprehensive school systems. Discusses the need for language maintenance and enrichment measures in both out-of-school and in-school environments. (SR)

Examines the effect of teaching signs on the expressive language output of young hearing children. Discusses practical application of this technique for enhancing language development. (EKN)

Kindergarten and child care center supervisors in Singapore completed questionnaires about their programs and about the competency of children in their program who were bilingual in English and Mandarin. Parents completed a questionnaire about the home environment. Found that parents' provision of language enrichment materials for their children…

Describes an introspective study of four advanced learners of German under conditions of initial extensive exposure to the second language community. It is suggested that introspective techniques can profitably be employed with the advanced learner. (49 references) (CB)

Study of the use of a Portuguese speaking test to evaluate placement and gains in oral proficiency during a six-week summer study abroad program indicated that the test results augmented existing information for appropriate placement and had limited ability to measure language gains made during the summer study program. (11 references) (CB)

Comparison of the effects of error- versus message-oriented written feedback on second-language students' essays found that error corrections and rule reminders did not significantly improve students' written accuracy or enhance the ideational quality of their writing, whereas message-related comments promoted writing proficiency. (63 references)…

This classroom research project focused on 10 fifth-grade students, all of whom had been labelled low-average achievers by their school. Students were encouraged to read, write, draw, talk, tell stories, and play freely. Five case studies emerged from the interactions. It became apparent that the children were shaping literature to their…

Explores the few studies that compare the psycholinguistic processes characterizing second language acquisition in the classroom and native-speaking environments. A description of a study that found that, although intermediate Spanish students extensively monitored language usage in both environments, their monitored knowledge was still quite…

Compared social-linguistic experiences of six early readers (ERs) and six prereading (PRs) matched-age peers in interactions with their middle-class parents. Found that ER parents created an even more enriched language environment for their children than PR parents. Differences on decontextualized language tasks favored ER families, and ERs gave…

Observation of a maintenance bilingual (Spanish-English) program to determine its effects on majority language students found that fully English-proficient students enrolled in the program did achieve competency in Spanish and that their attitudes toward Spanish, second-language learning, and Mexican-American culture and community were strongly…

An attempt is made in the present paper to resolve inconsistencies between the results of recent studies which have reported that bilingualism is associated with positive cognitive consequences and earlier studies which suggested that bilingualism might adversely affect cognitive and scholastic progress. Because recent studies involved balanced…

Suggests that first-time young collaborators are likely to struggle for control of their writing group and for control of the common text. They are ultimately likely to accept the leadership of the group member who makes best use of other member's skills. Focuses on problem-solving skills. (Author/RWB)

A longitudinal study of four West German university students during their six-month stay at a university in Great Britain found that their oral English-as-a-Second-Language performance improved under initial exposure to the English-speaking community, with the motor for linguistic performance appearing to be learner experimentation in production.…