Purpose: This study examined the relation between African American preschoolers' use of African American English (AAE) and their language and emergent literacy skills in an effort to better understand the perplexing and persistent difficulties many African American children experience learning to read proficiently. Method: African American…

This paper reports a study employing stimulated recall protocols to investigate how L1 English-speaking learners of L2 German use their metalinguistic knowledge during the resolution of selected form-focused tasks. Verbal report data from 10 university level learners were analysed to gain insight into explicit knowledge in action during controlled…

Linda Scott DeRosier's autobiographical accounts of literacy attainment in "Creeker: A Woman's Journey" and "Songs of Life and Grace" reveal that entrance into a secondary discourse community via literacy can bring both pleasure and pain. Analyzing the identity negotiations DeRosier encounters reveals that although she…

The purpose of this study was to examine the character identification strategies of Chinese children during their oral reading of a continuous text. Eighteen second graders' oral reading of a story, as well as an interview about their decoding strategies, were audiotaped and transcribed. The results generally converged with those of previous oral…

For several years children at Joyce Public School have been rewriting traditional stories from localized cultural and linguistic perspectives, creating innovative, individualized narrative forms with digital technology. Our experimental multiliteracies research project is a collaboration of school and university teachers and researchers following…

Honoring students' home dialect is a complex task when preparing them to take state writing tests that require the use of Standard English. Working with students who had failed the test and were in danger of not receiving a diploma, Michelle Crotteau created a supportive learning environment in which students could develop linguistic and…

Discusses the tradition of argument about what forms of metalinguistic discourse are valid, useful, and significant in the era of modern Western linguistics, with particular reference to the argument between linguistic science and prescriptivism. The article emphasizes that linguistic norms are open to challenge and change about what their nature…

Revives Eric Hawkins' idea of a language "trivium" where language awareness activities should fill the space between the learner's two languages. Draws a distinction between awareness and consciousness of language and suggests that cross-linguistic relationships are a major source of input salience strengthening, due to bilinguals'…

Native and nonnative speakers of English listened to a nonnative speaker's reading of well-formed sentences and those containing grammatical errors of three types. Identified errors were judged for gravity on a 5-point scale. In a second experiment, subjects identified error types and rated them for gravity and annoyance in an aural task; they…

Reviews the nature of processing instruction (PI) and the research that has been conducted on it since 1993. Concludes that Batstone's (2002a) analysis and critique of PI is unfounded and that PI captures his given-to-new principle via the feedback learners get during instruction. (Author/VWL)

Examines to what extent, if at all, grammar instruction fosters or accelerates language acquisition. Presents a study investigating the acquisition of syntactic or morphological structures in 340 students learning German as a foreign language. The results are discussed. (AS)

Notes that, although linguistics has had little influence on composition pedagogy, the study of functional grammar or linguistic performance (how language is actually used) is of direct value to composition theory. Offers an extended discussion of a functional approach to punctuation instruction, and proposes a functional approach in other areas…

Examined thematic and grammatical role categories accessible to preschool children and how access to these categories changes with age. Results of three experiments with children and adults confirmed the psychological reality of certain semantic categories, and provided evidence suggesting a transition in the prominence of semantic relative to…

Three experiments examined the ability of 60 3-year-old children's ability to select homonym pairs and the extent to which they realized that homonyms represent 2 different categories. Results confirm that children have the metalinguistic skills necessary to identify homonym pairs and to realize they represent two different categories, suggesting…

The notion of critical linguistics is examined, and it is argued that the diverse objectives usually given for Language Awareness programs appear to be given desocializing weightings in actual materials. Ways that Critical Language Awareness can be incorporated into a family history writing project are described. (20 references) (Author/LB)