Considerations in teaching students from linguistically diverse backgrounds are outlined. The instructional program must consider: (1) the social, economic, and political circumstances of the students' families; (2) their reasons for being in the United States and the length of their residence; (3) their attitudes toward the English-speaking group…

In this article the influence of linguistic science on language teaching is traced from the mid-nineteenth century through the present. The earlier concepts of universal logical grammar, formal discipline, and transfer of training are explained. Linguistic development is charted through behaviorism and formal analysis to the combination of…

This volume contains the 1969 working papers on subjects related to teaching English as a second language (TESL) and abstracts of Masters Theses completed by students studying TESL. Several articles discuss teaching and learning a second language and practical considerations in second language learning such as reading and writing skills, the use…

The papers included in this volume constitute the report of a conference on bilingual education that took place in Toronto in March 1971, sponsored by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). An introduction to the book defines terms, presents questions and problems, and provides a summary of the current tasks established in the…

Papers from the 1998 Hispanic Linguistics Symposium include: "Patterns of Gender Agreement in the Speech of Second Language Learners"; "'Nomas' in Mexican American Dialect"; "Parsing Spanish 'solo'"; "On Levels of Processing and Levels of Comprehension"; "The Role of Attention in Second/Foreign Language Classroom Research: Methodological Issues";…

Errors can be considered concrete representations of stages through which one must go in order to acquire one's native language and a second language. It has been discovered that certain errors appear systematically, revealing an approximate system, or "interlanguage," behind the erroneous utterances. Present research in second language…

A study was conducted to determine the extent to which listening comprehension is impaired when students are confronted with the colloquial use of French, as opposed to its formal use. It was found that amoung 128 prospective French teachers who participated in the study, there existed a low comprehension level of colloquial French, a discrepancy…

This article deals with the issue of gaining proficiency in oral expression in a second language. A functional approach to teaching oral proficiency is outlined, an approach which focuses on the audience as a determining factor in the speaker's linguistic output. Claims in the article are based on an experiment in the teaching of oral proficiency…

This paper describes the past assumptions about the mismatch of child language and school language, noting the distance principle, the characteristics of language interference and the various treatments that have been hypothesized. Past research involving language mismatch and reading is reviewed, and it is noted that even though the best evidence…

This handbook is a guide to a compensatory language program designed for young, Australian, aboriginal children during their first year at school. It is the result of recent research which shows that reading retardation characteristic of aboriginal children may well be associated with the fact that their linguistic system differs from that in the…

This issue has four articles. Maria del Pilar Garcia Mayo and Teresa Pica in "Is the EFL Environment a Language Learning Environment?" address the question of whether the English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom is an environment that promotes input, feedback, and the production of output that is necessary for successful second…

Based on the thesis that reading is not a passive process by which readers soak up words and information from the page, but an active process by which they predict, sample, and confirm or correct their hypotheses about the written text, this book is an introduction to the theories of the psycholinguistic nature of the reading process and reading…

This review is intended to expand on the issues of: (1) the cultural and linguistic identity of children of minority groups in Britain, and (2) the teaching of English to these children. The review relates these issues to the broader questions of policy in the education of minority group children and highlights some areas where research is needed.…

This is the fifth annual compilation of graduate theses and dissertations in English as a second language (ESL). This series is intended to provide researchers in ESL, bilingual education, and related fields with specific information on current graduate-level studies. Each of the sixty-nine entries provides the writer's name, thesis or…

Discourse analysis has provided a methodology for the study of conversational interactions between language learner and native speaker. This study examines the verbal and nonverbal strategies that native speakers use when communicating with second language learners in natural, non-academic, "survival type" settings. The areas discussed include:…