Discusses some of the problems involved in teaching linguistics to teachers of French as a native language on the elementary level. (AM)

Examines the variety of approaches currently found in the teaching of French as a native language in the French elementary school system and in teacher colleges, in the wake of the rise of linguistics. (AM)

This article discusses the advantages of maintaining a three-way system of dividing language students into beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

This article discusses the role of phonetics in second language teaching, and stresses the importance of considering the whole speech event in adapting phonetics to instruction. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Evaluates the contribution of Coupland's research project on language and aging from the perspective of an African interest in gerontology. Argues that some of the underlying concepts need to be reconsidered if the project is to be extended to a different context. Outlines the strengths and frustrations inherent in multidisciplinary research. (17…

Responds to an article suggesting there were two current forms of English-as-a-Foreign-Language, represented by the academic model and the therapeutic model. The article also proposed an alternative model. This critique takes issue with several points in the earlier article. (Author/VWL)

Discusses four general areas of linguistics studies that are particularly relevant to literacy issues: (1) discourse analysis, including text analysis, spoken and written language, and home and school discourse; (2) relationships between speech and writing, the distance between dialects and written norms, and developmental writing; (3)…

The main difference between the information-processing and Bialystok's Analysis/Control framework for first and second language learning is in their focus. The latter is equipped mainly to account for performance differences on metalinguistic tasks, while the former accounts for construction and reconstruction of implicit and explicit mental…

By presenting two theories of first and second language learning dichotomously, their fundamental similarity as information-processing theories is obscured and details of both positions are misrepresented. (Author/MSE)

It is suggested that the most widely-known estimate of English speech rates, based on the speech of radio announcers, and a comparison of English and French radio announcer speech rates do not represent a truly standard range of speech rates. An alternative range is proposed. (Author/MSE)

Applied linguistics and psychometrics have influenced language testing, providing additional tools for investigating factors affecting language test performance and assuring measurement reliability. An examination is presented of language testing, including the theoretical issues involved, the methodological advances, language test development,…

Major approaches of describing or examining linguistic data from a potential target language (input) are analyzed for adequacy in addressing the concerns of second language learning theory. Suggestions are made for making the best of these varied concepts of input and for reformulation of a unified concept. (MSE)

Argues that the focus of literacy studies or applied linguistics should not be language, or literacy, but social practices. Introduces a concept of language usage called "Discourse," incorporating words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes. (FMW)

Investigates some of the affinities between the traditions of communicative competence and literacy studies by examining the historical and current use of ethnographic methodology in such studies. Describes how communicative competence theory is "branching out" into communicative approaches to second language pedagogy, mingling both psychological…

Discusses some of the main protagonists in the debate between economists about their own discourse and reviews significant studies by applied linguists in this area. The article suggests that these studies may be grouped according to the categories micro-studies, macro-studies and educational studies. (57 references) (Author/CK)