Aligned with its 1998 standards for first- and second-language learning, Alberta Learning has published lesson plans that aim for a closer relationship between learning and evaluation. Each volume in this series presents a specific task for students that involves planning, carrying out and evaluating their work. The task for eighth grade students…

The report, entirely in French, describes Alberta's curriculum for high school French native language instruction, as revised in 1998. An introductory section offers background information on the curriculum's design, links between the core curriculum and French native language instruction, underlying principles of language instruction, the…

This paper explains how oral competence in foreign languages is developed by applying constructivist pedagogic methodology to the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Foreign language constructivist methodology departs from the information processing model and behaviorist teaching that guide the transmission of…

This edited volume focuses on the linguistic aspects of the Spanish used in the United States today. The earliest studies in this field concentrated on rural Mexican-American Spanish in the Southwest. The parameters of the field have been extended in response to changing urban and demographic realities, and to paradigm shifts in linguistics…

Reviews an individually administered instrument for use by special education teachers in assessing both spoken and written language for the purpose of developing a remedial program. Finds many problems with the instrument and concludes that there is little or no justification for using it. (FL)

Examines why learners of Mandarin use overt nouns and pronouns to a greater extent than native speakers. Findings indicate that no single syntactic structure is a significant contributor to the different rates of optional ellipsis but that some learners use ellipsis only in syntactic contexts permissible in English and most use it in a narrower…

Explores one aspect of the possible relationship between speech perception and the awareness of linguistically relevant sound patterns in the first years of word reading. No evidence emerged of a concurrent association between children's skills in labelling speech sounds at the beginning of words and their phonological awareness of either rhyme or…

Proposes an approach to teaching reasoning through classroom conversation that integrates group work around computers into curriculum-related activities. The article examines research on collaborative learning and describes a program in which the computer is used to direct children's explicit, joint reasoning in curriculum-related activities. (79…

Outlines a teaching approach for oral English for special purposes that inputs chunks of natural language orally. These "chunks" can be segmented by the learner into fixed and variable units, while simultaneously making the learner aware of the paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and phonological aspects of the language being taught. This…

Describes a mispronunciation detection task, in which listeners' sensitivity to deviations in speech is measured by their pressing a button upon hearing a mispronounced word in lists or sentences. Notes that reaction times and miss rates indicate the effects of position of a misplaced phoneme in a word, the size of the phonemic deviation, lexical…

Presents a case for teaching the discourse-based features of English intonation to improve cross-cultural communication at receptive and productive stages. A systematic approach is suggested for teaching the pragmatic and discourse functions of English intonation through a consciousness-raising methodology that utilizes authentic oral texts. (34…

This article presents an overview of phonological awareness, print awareness, and oral language development and discusses the critical role they play in emergent literacy. Recent research is reviewed and strategies are provided for promoting emergent literacy through each of these areas in the preschool classroom. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Discusses research on phonological instruction that indicates that improvement in pronunciation for adult foreign language learners is possible via a multimodal methodology designed to accommodate individual learning styles. An extension of this research examines experimental subjects' improvement in pronunciation accuracy and pinpoints areas…

In this study, planning time was manipulated as a variable in a trial administration of a semi-direct oral interaction test. Discourse analytic techniques were used to determine the nature and/or significance of difference in the elicited discourse across two conditions in terms of complexity and accuracy. Findings suggest that planning time may…

This epilogue to a forum on children with hearing impairments who have cochlear implants discusses innovation in implant technology and considers intervention issues. Key factors influencing outcomes are discussed, including educational programming, amount and length of communication intervention, and the targeting of both developmental and…