This issue includes the following articles: "Assimilation to the Unmarked" (Eric Bakovic); "On the Non-Universality of Functional Projections and the Effects on Parametrized Variation: Evidence from Creoles" (Marlyse Baptista); "What Turkish Acquisition Tells Us about Underlying Word Order and Scrambling" (Natalie…

Reports on a classroom-based, longitudinal study of the effect of learner strategy instruction on listening comprehension. The hypothesis that systematic instruction in the use of strategies will result in the improvement of listening comprehension was confirmed. (Author/JL)

Examines the impact of language policy in Ukraine on language utilization patterns of school children in Kyiv. Using quantitative data from student responses to a questionnaire focusing on subject background, native and home language, including reported usage of interactive and interpretive language, examines the extent to which language shift or…

Examines how language-of-instruction choice affects Estonian Russian-speaking minority students following legislation requiring Estonian-only secondary education. Research indicates that Russian-speaking choice parents selecting Estonian-speaking schools differ from nonchoice Russian-speaking parents in resourcefulness. Despite Soviet-era…

Examines how the significant sociocultural changes that took place in Hungary in the 1990s affected school children's language-related attitudes and language learning motivation concerning five target languages: English, German, French, Italian, and Russian. Analyses are based on survey data collected from 13- and 14-year-old pupils in 1993 and…

Considers the interrater reliability of certified testers in five European languages, the relationship between interviewer-assigned ratings and second ratings based on audio replay, interrater reliability as a function of proficiency level, effect of different languages on interrater agreement, and interrater disagreements with regard to…

Discusses influences on the development of Russian nationalism. Describes the development of an intelligentsia and its relationship with both peasants and rulers. Addresses the influence of French and German political and religious thinkers. Emphasizes that the Napoleonic wars provided both a Russian patriotic bond and exposure of Russia's elite…

This article discusses the issues surrounding which language should be used for instruction in the Ukraine, where Ukrainian, the majority language, has suffered attrition. Also discussed is the choice of a modern foreign language for students in secondary and tertiary systems. (Contains 12 references.) (VWL)

Comparison of language proficiency gains in Russian study abroad in Russia looked at homestay versus dormitory residence. Statistical analysis of the American Council of Teachers of Russian students records database, which contains proficiency data on 2,500 study-abroad participants, was used to compare gains made in speaking, listening, and…

Examines ongoing language reform work in Uzbekistan to see what principles and attitudes Uzbek language policy is based on and what impact it may have on the language situation in the country as a whole. (Author/JL)

Investigated the relationship among identity, affective variables, and achievement in English as a foreign language (EFL). Participants were 135 native Hebrew speakers and 53 native Russian speakers studying advanced EFL at an Israeli university. Results showed that ethnolinguistic identity was a greater predictor of achievement than any of the…

Presents a tribute to Dan Davidson, American Department of Foreign Language's (ADFL) 1997 honoree as an outstanding educator, focusing on Davidson's work to expand Russian studies nationwide and forge ties between U.S. Russianists and Russia itself over the past decades, beginning with the post-Sputnik era. Davidson was able to go beyond the Iron…

Almost since the moment the Berlin Wall crumbled, American schools' interest in teaching Russian did likewise. But precisely because the numbers of Russian learners fell off sharply, Glastonbury and the few other schools that have stuck with the language are finding their students very much in demand. In this article, the author reports how…

To contribute to a better understanding of second language (L2) sentence processing, the present study examines how L2 learners parse temporarily ambiguous sentences containing relative clauses. Results are reported from both off-line and on-line experiments with three groups of advanced learners of Greek whose native languages (L1s) were Spanish,…

This study compares patterns of consonant-to-consonant timing at word boundaries in English and Russian and investigates the roles of transfer and the emergence of linguistic universals in second language (L2) articulation. Native Russian speakers learning English and native English speakers learning Russian produced phrases in English and Russian…