Demonstrates use of Fry Readability Graph (FRG) and Adaptation for Spanish Evaluation (FRASE) graph to assess reading difficulty for use with Spanish material. (BK)

The primary aim of this study was to assess the impact of a curricular intervention on study-abroad students' use of language- and culture-learning strategies and on their acquisition of requests and apologies. The intervention consisted of a brief face-to-face orientation to learning speech acts, a self-study guidebook on language and culture…

This study explored the affective factors influencing students' learning of Catalan across different year levels in a multilingual school community in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). Questionnaires were distributed to 176 students, from 12 to 17 years of age, registered in a public secondary school, the majority of whom were not born in Catalonia.…

In this article, we extend Firth and Wagner's (1997) call for an ontological perspective that (re)unites the individual and the social by proposing some fundamental implications that this call has for second language (L2) classroom praxis and teacher education. We propose that the (re)unification of language and culture (re)establishes the unity…

In a study of classroom second language acquisition, sought to determine reasons why the context in which a word appears does not always lead a language learner to an accurate interpretation of its meaning. Expands the existing research by using a natural intact, unmanipulated test as the context. Analysis of students' answers, self-reported…

Analysis of speech data from three adult elementary Spanish students, focusing on the acquisition of noun-phrase agreement and the copulas "ser" and "estar," revealed that learners could be classified as either form based or meaning based in terms of their strategic orientation to acquisition of the target language. (CB)

Lists the doctoral degrees granted in foreign languages, literature, culture, linguistics, and foreign language education in 1981. The order of entries is major field or area of specialization, institution, author, title of dissertation, and director or supervisor of dissertation. (EKN)

Reports on a study identifying the varying beliefs of beginning university foreign language students about language learning, focusing on one component of an ongoing investigation attempting to characterize individual learner beliefs and belief systems by student type. (CB)

Reports on the Culver City, California, Spanish Immersion Program, modeled after the St. Lambert, Montreal, Canada bilingual education program. (RL)

Discusses controversy between transitional versus maintenance bilingual education programs in Spanish. Claims policy of static maintenance cannot find support in a view of linguistic competence that considers language development to be complete by adolescence and the same among individuals. Suggests developing students' home language or abandoning…

This study investigates the effectiveness of three methods of learning vocabulary among 778 beginning second language (L2) learners. Rote memorization consists of memorizing the first language (L1) translation of a new L2 word by rehearsal. Semantic mapping displays L1 words conceptually related to the L2 word in a diagram. The keyword method…

Situated in the context of learning second language (L2) pronunciation, this article discusses from information-processing and pedagogical perspectives the role of repetitive practice with L2 input and of explicit focus on its form-related (phonological) properties. First, we report the results of an auditory word-priming experiment with 60 L2…

Issue devoted to ways in which foreign literatures are taught in the language classroom. (DS)