"Malik Goes to School: Examining the Language Skills of African American Students From Preschool-5th Grade" synthesizes a decade of research by the authors, Holly Craig and Julie Washington, on the oral language and literacy skills of African American children from preschool to fifth grade. Their research has characterized significant influences…

Provides a detailed analysis of techniques used for second language vocabulary assessment and the implied assumptions about the underlying construct of vocabulary knowledge. The article notes that existing measures of vocabulary size are uninformative as to the depth of knowledge that learners have about particular words. (56 references)…

Addresses the issue of collocations as an important and neglected variable in English-as-a-Foreign-Language classes. Two questionnaires, in English and Arabic, involving common collocations relating to food, color, and weather were administered to English majors and English language teachers. Results show both groups deficient in collocations. (36…

Addresses two questions concerning whole language teaching to young children: (1) What is whole language? (2) What experiences are appropriate for whole language teaching? (BB)

Studies native speakers of Korean to determine the role of universals in their acquisition of English obstruent voicing contrasts. Data were collected from a passage and a word list containing voiced and voiceless obstruents in initial, medial, and final word positions. Results reflected principles of markedness, universals of L1 acquisition, and…

Research described oral texts produced by second- and third- generation bilingual Chicano Spanish speakers when required to carry out a set of functions in only one of their available codes. Analysis focuses on characteristics of planned, noninteractive spoken language produced in Spanish by university students in a classroom setting, compared…

This collection of essays focuses on historical, structural, lexical, and sociological aspects of Romani and its regional variations. The focus is primarily but not exclusively on oral language. Essays include: "On Typological Changes and Structural Borrowing in the History of European Romani" (Vit Bubenik); "On the Migration and…

One of the main aims of the Teaching Content in a Foreign Language (TCFL) program, an in-service teacher training program at the Continuing Education Centre of the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland), was to improve the participants' proficiency in English. To promote this objective, English was made the operating language for the whole program.…

The origins, development, and implementation of a course in oral presentation skills in English for graduate students in the sciences and engineering are described. The course was piloted at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan to train students for presentation of technical papers. Background information is offered on English language…

A study investigated alternative methods of assessing student language skills in Arlington County (Virginia) public schools' Spanish/English two-way bilingual partial immersion program, with the objective of improving information for developing more effective teaching. A team of teachers from each participating school worked with researchers to…

Each major trend in 20th-century second language teaching is explained, and similarities and differences are highlighted. An introductory chapter offers a brief history of second language teaching. The second chapter outlines a model for examining and comparing the different approaches. This model is used in subsequent chapters to describe methods…

Papers in this volume on contrastive linguistics include the following: "Auxiliaries in English and Danish" (Niels Davidsen-Nielsen); "On Tongue Twisters" (Wlodzimierz Sobkowiak); "On Derivational and Phrasal Adverbials of Manner" (James L. Wyatt); "Scrambling and the Polish Word Order. An Alternative Hypothesis" (Przemyslaw Tajsner); "Verbs of…

To date, principles of applied linguistics have been practiced little in the Chinese foreign language (CFL) classroom. Most students of Chinese, the majority of whom are in higher education, are not knowledgeable about linguistics. Most teachers of Chinese in the United States are hired for their interest in Chinese culture or native Chinese…

A primary concern affecting the more than 300 American Indian tribes and their educational institutions is the promotion, maintenance, and preservation of their approximately 200 native languages. The nature of language use must be documented and assessed to ascertain whether tribal members, particularly children, possess native language skills…

Focusing on the relationship between learning oral language and learning about written language, this book discusses the emergent literacy (EL) of children growing up in a Western, print-oriented society, as well as findings of research conducted during the past 15 years on how children make sense of the way in which literacy works in their…