This study introduces a typological model of the "conceptual language-specific approach" to the L2 research on the acquisition of tense-aspect. The model is based on the typological notion of prominence, classifying languages into tense-prominent and aspect-prominent (Bhat 1999) and the L1 research proposal that language-specific…

This quasi-experimental study explores the effects of three types of instruction (form-based, meaning-based, and form- plus meaning-based) on the learning of Japanese relative clauses (RCs) and postsecondary Japanese as a foreign language learners' ability to generalize different types of relativization, examined in comparison to the predictions…

This article explores how collocation relates to lexical technicality, and how the relationship can be exploited for teaching EAP to second-year engineering students. First, corpus data are presented to show that complex noun phrase formation is a ubiquitous feature of engineering text, and that these phrases (or collocations) are highly…

If good proficiency in L2 entails the acquisition not only of many single words but of many lexical chunks as well, it must then be asked how all this additional lexis is to be committed to long-term memory in the limited time available on non-intensive classroom-based language courses. If it is the case that a significant fraction of…

This study investigated whether pre-task planning that embeds grammatical guidance to attend to a specific L2 form might be a suitable pedagogical choice in beginning-level foreign language classrooms. First-year high school students of English in Japan were asked to do an oral story-retelling task with a class partner under one of three…

Developing the ability to speak in a foreign language is an arduous task. This is because it involves the mastery of different language subsystems, simultaneous focus on comprehension and production, and the impact of a range of social factors. This challenge is further compounded in situations in which learners have limited access to the target…

This study introduces a new computer-based methodology, "concgramming", that has as its primary aim the automatic identification of the phraseological profile and hence the "aboutness", of a text or corpus. It is argued that this methodology can be employed by language learners and teachers to raise awareness of the importance of the…

One of the genuine contributions of theoretical linguistics to the interdisciplinary field of applied linguistics is to elucidate the nature of "what should be taught" and "how it should be taught". Traditionally, the input supplied in vocabulary teaching has consisted either of word lists (most often) or of words-in-context…

Adolescent aspirations associated with perceptions of "living well" were qualitatively evaluated based on 187 middle school student responses. Using grounded theory methodology, 976 words and phrases were coded and grouped; 41.9% were extrinsic, 36.3% were intrinsic, and 21.8% of the passages were merely descriptive. Extrinsic coded…

This lesson uses a text about the houseboats of Kashmir to give students practice with descriptions, compound words, and participles. The lesson plan could be adapted to tourist destinations familiar to the students. Students are asked to write a description of their homes and create a tourism brochure for their own cities or towns.

Educational leaders need to ask themselves how it is possible that nearly 40% of 329,969 Texas fourth grade students are reading below grade level? With accountability standards rising, how does any school with an at-risk population produce fluent readers and in turn master grade level expectations? Scholars agree that meaning derives from…

Successful inclusion is facilitated when children with autism fit in and interact in meaningful ways with their typical peers. However, deficits in conversational language likely limit the social attractiveness of children with autism to their classmates. This study evaluated an incidental teaching approach to promoting use of age-appropriate…

One of the major findings in previous research on reflexive coreference in a second language is that learners of English violate the locality requirement of the reflexive form "x-self" more readily when it appears in the subordinate infinitival clause than when included in the subordinate tensed clause (a phenomenon called the…

This textbook is the fourth volume in a series of readers. New words are defined and phrases to discuss with the teacher are included.

A justification for teaching long forms instead of contracted forms, e.g., What's this?,'' as a pedagogical advantage in the intitial stages of the spoken language course. (RS)