The present study examined factors that influence the process of learning to read in a second language. The Hebrew reading comprehension skills of 68 Russian-speaking children (mean age 7 years 6 months) were screened at the start of Grade 2. From this sample, 40 participants were selected: 20 successful learners and 20 unsuccessful learners.…

For emerging democracies civic education issues have special meaning. Often these issues play a vital role in the process of nation building and democratic consolidation, which makes the interplay between the school system and the socio-political environment particularly important. Estonia, which inherited from the half-century Soviet occupation a…

This article reports on a diary study conducted to explore third language acquisition in the immersion setting in Mexico as experienced by a bilingual Russian/English learner of Spanish who had recently immigrated to the USA from Russia. Language learning is approached as a socialization process that involves negotiation of meaning (Vygotsky,…

An analysis of the evolution of reflexive verbs focuses on reflexive to middle voice development in two-form middle systems, which include Russian, Old Norse, Turkish, and Hungarian. The diachronic processes associated with these systems are examined. The changes in the languages over time represent a gradual change in the semantics of the…

This issue of the journal includes these papers on contrastive linguistics: "The Impersonal Sentence in Russian and Romanian" (Suzanne Whalen); "Differential Identity Between Languages--A Study of Assertion and Interrogation in French and English" (William A. Bennett); "The Use of the Article in English and Hungarian: A Contrastive Analysis" (Eva…

The history and rationale for entry and exit tests devised to meet Pennsylvania's standards for certifying foreign language teachers are outlined and discussed. The involvement of the Educational Testing Service in developing and validating tests in a variety of subject areas is described, and the need for institutional rather than standardized…

Intended to provide middle school and high school teachers and others interested in Russia and the Soviet Union with a guide to printed materials, this booklet is divided into several sections. The first section, comprising the bulk of the publication, is devoted to reviews of 69 books that were written for classroom use or appear as if they might…

A collection of 32 conference papers is presented as reflecting the state of the art in contrastive linguistics studies of English and other languages. The reports cover the following topics: 5 English contrastive projects (Romanian-English, Yugoslav-Serbo-Croatian English, English-Hungarian, and Finnish-English analysis, and a project from the…

A collection of articles concerning suggestive-accelerative learning and teaching (SALT) methods includes: "Suggestive Teaching Methods in the Soviet Union" (Eva Szalontai); "SALT Applied to Remedial Reading: A Critical Review" (Allyn Prichard and Jean Taylor); "The Waldorf Schools: An Artistic Approach to Education"…

A volume combining two special issues of "Papers in Linguistics" contains 10 papers concerning Japanese language use and 12 concerning languages of the U.S.S.R. The papers on Japanese include: "Intrusion in Japanese Conversation,""Japanese Use of English Loans,""Some Discourse Principles and Lengthy Sentences in…

A guide on foreign languages is presented for counselors, administrators, teachers, and parents. An introductory section discusses reasons for foreign language study, college entrance or exit requirements, foreign language and SAT scores, careers that use foreign languages, myths about learning foreign languages, and information about French,…

ALTHOUGH THE ENROLLMENT IN COURSES IN UKRANIAN IN WESTERN CANADA'S SECONDARY SCHOOLS CONTINUES TO INCREASE NORMALLY, THE DEMAND FOR RUSSIAN DECLINES PROGRESSIVELY. FACTORS AFFECTING THE ENROLLMENT TRENDS ARE (1) THE UNDERSTANDABLE PREFERENCE OF THE PREDOMINANTLY UKRANIAN POPULATION OF THE PRAIRIE STATES TO STUDY THEIR PARENT TONGUE, (2) THE LOCAL…

THE NEW YORK STATE SYLLABUS FOR RUSSIAN IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS FOLLOWS THE SAME FORMAT AS THOSE FOR FRENCH, GERMAN, AND SPANISH, AND FOR COMPLETE TEXT, INCLUDING GENERAL SECTIONS ON TEACHING LANGUAGES, THE READER MUST REFER TO ONE OF THOSE THREE BOOKS. THIS GUIDE DELINEATES THE AIMS, TECHNIQUES, CONTENT, AND SCOPE OF RUSSIAN INSTRUCTION FOR A 6-YEAR…

A DETAILED DESCRIPTION IS GIVEN OF AN EXPERIMENT CONDUCTED AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY FROM 1960 TO 1966 IN WHICH SELECTED BLIND STUDENTS, THROUGH INTENSIVE AUDIOLINGUAL LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION, WERE TRAINED TO BROADEN THEIR EMPLOYMENT POTENTIAL. ALTHOUGH ONLY RUSSIAN AND THE TRANSCRIPTION OF ORAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE MATERIALS WERE TAUGHT IN THE PILOT…

CONTRASTIVE CULTURAL FEATURES SHOULD BE INCLUDED WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE GRAMMATICAL LESSON AS A MEANS OF COUNTERBALANCING THE GENERALLY UNSATISFACTORY MATERIAL USED FOR RUSSIAN TEXTS. LESSONS FOR AMERICAN STUDENTS LEARNING RUSSIAN SHOULD INCLUDE PHONOLOGICAL DRILLS ON VOWEL LENGTHS, DISTRIBUTION OF VOICED OBSTRUENTS, AND OBSTRUENT CLUSTERS,…