The use of the cloze procedure by classroom teachers who are not extensively trained in testing in general or language testing in particular is discussed. Focal points are material selection for cloze; some technical aspects of construction and administration; insights about testing language students naive to cloze; reliability of cloze…

This paper discusses the relationship between language proficiency and intelligence. In particular, the paper is concerned with the elements of intelligence testing which creep into tests designed to determine language proficiency, and the proliferation of testing of all types and the kinds of interpretations made of these tests. Particular…

The present study reports on exploratory research to determine whether the Aluminum Paragraph, a sentence-combining exercise developed by O'Donnell (Hunt, 1970) to measure the development of syntactic complexity in the writing of native speakers of English, can also serve as a measure of the active syntactic proficiency of learners of English as a…

This paper is designed to help educators prepare non-native speakers of English for work in business by studying the overall effectiveness of English for specific purposes programs at the University of Michigan Business School. It describes the English for Business Studies (EBS) program established in 1986. Situated discourse research in a focus…

This paper reports findings from a study of bilingual language alternation by first grade Korean-American schoolchildren. Growing up as members of the Korean immigrant community in New York City, the children in this study all entered school with Korean as their mother tongue, and at the time of the investigation, alternated between Korean and…

The potential for on-line corpus in language teaching and learning has been the focus of attention on the part of teachers and researchers for some time now. The purpose of this study is to report on an Internet-based concordance approach to language learning and to investigate both qualitatively and quantitatively Taiwanese…

Investigated the acquisition of narrow-range rules governing the dative alternation by adult learners of English as a Second Language, native English speakers, and Japanese and Chinese speakers. Suggests that the Japanese and Chinese learners' acquisition of the dative alternation in English is governed by the properties of an equivalent structure…

Investigates the relative frequency with which U.S. subjects with a non-English first language use English vis-a-vis their other non-English languages. Data from the 1976 Survey of Income and Education (over 150,000 households) indicate that societal pressure and demographic constraints on interactions in non-English languages influence language…

Focuses on the use of inexplicitness by native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) engaged in English conversations, for example impromptu, uninstitutionalized discourses. Shows that a characteristic of NNSs spoken language is the inappropriate level of inexplicitness used and the ways in which inexplicitness is manifested in the…

Cross-border education has been growing dramatically in both English-speaking countries and non-native English-speaking countries. While more and more students, particularly from Asian countries such as Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan choose to study in English-speaking countries, many native English speakers go to Asian countries to…

The present study measures linguistic insecurity among college level heritage language (HL) learners along the Texas-Mexico border. We measured students' self-reported confidence in speaking and writing in English and in Spanish and analyzed students' perception of instruction in both languages. We argue that high levels of linguistic insecurity…

This exploratory study examines corrective feedback in native speaker-nonnative speaker (NS-NNS) and NNS-NNS dyads while participants were engaged in communicative and problem-solving activities via "Yahoo! Instant Messenger" (YIM). As "negotiation of meaning" studies of the 1990s have shown, linguistic items which learners negotiate in…

We have developed an English pronunciation learning system which estimates the intelligibility of Japanese learners' speech and ranks their errors from the viewpoint of improving their intelligibility to native speakers. Error diagnosis is particularly important in self-study since students tend to spend time on aspects of pronunciation that do…

The paper revisits the debate on the new forms of English and proposes a curricular reform that would make the teaching of English in Africa effective and profitable. The discussion is based on sample texts from Kenyan users of English and relates the linguistic form to the sociocultural contexts in which the language is used. The paper argues for…

This paper discusses a study that sought to design an instrument for assessing the nonverbal ability of foreign language learners. The subjects were 28 educated Japanese non-native speakers (NNS) of English and 20 educated North American native speakers (NS) of English. Materials used were the institutional Test of English as a Foreign Language…