Discusses a method that enables students of English to classify and organize their lexical capital by using triangles to diagram sentences. How to inscribe a sentence in a triangle is explained and illustrated. (CFM)

Demonstrates how Sector Analysis theory can serve as a model for the contrastive analysis of the grammars of any two languages. Examples are provided for English and Hausa. (AM)

An evaluation of the t-unit as the basic unit of analysis of second language development in written form argues that despite the t-unit's advantages, the sentence-based analysis is superior for examining syntactic complexity in at least three ways: (1) it better characterizes learner knowledge; (2) it facilitates comparison across learners and…

Describes a device or "game" using 3x5 cards to divide sentences in such a way as to guide the language learner to anticipate grammatical structures; to make him aware that grammar, as well as vocabulary, conveys meaning. (EJS)

Describes a sequence for teaching the Russian passive construction to exemplify how a learning sequence based on a contrastive analysis and on error analysis can lessen student errors. These errors are caused either by interference from the first language or over-generalization in the second language. (PMJ)

This Lao language textbook is the second draft of a book developed for teaching Lao to United States Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) and is designed to be used with a Lao language instructor familiar with competency based curricula. It is not designed for self-instruction, although after some hours of use, students may be familiar enough with the…

Three activities used with first-year French students are described: (1) drawing pictures by following directions which demonstrates knowledge of subjects and prepositions, (2) reading a poem in French and rewriting it in French prose, and (3) learning numbers through role-plays involving money. (PMJ)

A study of the information gained by students in the process of taking a cloze test in English as a second language was conducted with 34 full-time undergraduate foreign students at a state university. The subjects came from a variety of native language backgrounds. A 35-item cloze test was developed in which every eighth word was deleted,…

A university writing faculty conducted a study of the concepts of unity in expository prose and of sentence structure as understood by Arabic, Malay, and Spanish speakers to discover why some students grasp some concepts more readily than others. Interviews, surveys, and analysis of written compositions revealed that the reason lies in ways these…

Part of a 20-year Yugoslav Serbocroatian-English Contrastive Project, this study is intended to make students, teachers, textbook writers, and scholars aware of elements in the system of English modals that might cause difficulties to the native Serbocroatian-speaking learner of English. An eclectic method of contrastive analysis consisting of…

The following error made by Sudanese students in their written English is discussed: giving the direct translation of relative pronoun plus personal pronoun from the Arabic pattern instead of the relative pronoun. The structure of the relative clause in English and Arabic is also compared. (SW)

The manual supplements "English as a Second Language Program: A Support System for the Basal Readers," an oral language guide that is a compilation of objectives and activities that use a sequential and systematic approach to develop language skills and concepts. Designed to help teachers and other instructional personnel in the implementation of…

The language program guide explains the theoretical basis and the instructional objectives of the approach to developing English language proficiency, supporting the Houghton Mifflin Reading Series and the Ginn 360 Series. The first of three sections describes the theoretical considerations and the philosophy of the program; it provides…

A study examined the acquisition of negation in English as a Second Language in a 4-year-old Salvadoran girl, a native speaker of Spanish. Specifically, the study looked for evidence of language transfer in bilingual acquisition and the direction of that transfer (Spanish to English, English to Spanish). Over 5 months, spontaneous speech (55…

This paper contends that many of the difficulties students of Chinese have in reading comprehension are directly related to their level of understanding of Chinese language and culture, and that these difficulties could be alleviated by providing students with knowledge about the value system, social customs, formation of Chinese characters and…