摘要:

The constellation of personality and language exposure factors associated with learning French as a second language was examined among students enrolled in different second language programs–Early Immersion, Late Immersion or FSL. It was found that use of English with acquaintances was negatively associated with performance on the oral production measure and the Test de Rendement en Français, and shyness was similarly negatively associated with reading skills in French. There were significant interactions between language program and the following predictor variables–use of French with strangers, use of English with acquaintances, conformity and control. There was a significant positive relationship between the personality traits of conformity and control and language proficiency in an FSL program, but not in Immersion programs. An interpretation of these interactions is presented in terms of the language learning demands of the Immersion and FSL prog

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00120.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study examined changes in students' attitudes, motivation and French achievement during a five‐week, residential, summer program. Sixty‐two students were administered a battery of attitude and motivation tests as well as a test of oral French proficiency prior to, and upon completion of the course. In addition, both teacher‐ratings and self‐ratings of French language skills were collected at several time periods during the course. Data were analysed across the various testings for three groupings of students (i.e., beginning, intermediate, or advanced). Changes in attitudes, motivation and French proficiency were observed and the course was particularly effective in increasing student motivation to learn French and in promoting a rather rapid improve‐ ment in oral/aural skills. The pattern of attitude changes was more complex as both positive and negative shifts were observed. Possible implications of these findings for similar programs are

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00121.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The study reported here postulates the existence of two types of language learners who can be characterized by the intensity with which they practice a second language (L2). Any verbal interaction requiring L2 is defined here as practice. Learners who interact intensively, who seek out opportunities to use L2 and who cause others to direct language at them are termedhigh input generators.Learners who either avoid interacting or play relatively passive roles in language interaction situations are termedlow input generatorsThe subjects in this study are adult ESL students in an intensive program. They were grouped into one of the two categories described above based on a quantitative measure of verbal interaction in L2 classes. The subjects were then compared for performance or achievement on language tests, the amount of language contact outside the classroom, and field sensitivity. It was found that while placement test scores could not have predicted performance on final tests, measures of interaction could. It is concluded that interaction type is a determining variable in the acquisition of L2.

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00122.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper presents empirical data concerning the use of cloze tests to measure children's language proficiency in a bilingual education program. Grade five students in their sixth year of a primary French immersion program were tested using both English and French cloze tests. Correlations between the cloze test and other language achievement measures were calculated for both languages and found to be high. This suggests that in summative evaluations, the cloze technique provides an economical, valid and reliable measure of overall language proficiency.A detailed error analysis was also undertaken to compare quantitatively and qualitatively the errors made by bilingual students with those made by comparison groups of English students (in English) and students in francophone schools (in French). Generally speaking, few quantitative or qualitative differences were noted between the immersion students and the comparison groups. This suggests that strategies used to process the cloze passage by second language learners are similar to those used by their native language counterparts.

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00123.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) should be revised to incorporate a notion of degree of difficulty. This notion corresponds to typological markedness which can be determined independently of any particular language and independently of the facts concerning second language acquisition. Moreover, it is argued that if typological markedness is incorporated into the CAH, it is possible to predict not only the areas of difficulty for a second language learner, but also the relative degree of difficulty. Finally, it is argued that given certain assumptions about language and human learning, typological markedness is a natural and highly plausible notion of difficulty.

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00124.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This research investigates the influence of the listener on the dialectal code‐switching behavior of a group of bilingual teachers in Thailand. The variable of the listener's ethnic identity is manipulated, whereas previous research has been focussed primarily on the speaker's ethnic identity. The primary finding of the study is that the Chinese‐Thai bilinguals selected the “Thai” vruriant for each of the nine phonological variables a higher percentage of the time when they were speaking Thai to a Thai listener than when they were speaking Thai to a Chinese listener. And conversely, they chose a “Chinese” variant more frequently when speaking to a Chinese‐Thai than to an ethnic Thai. The significance of these findings is that linguists must discontinue the still accepted practice of defining speech style in terms of the listener if they want to obtain reliable data. The data also point to the need for educators in bilingual and second language programs to continue researching the factors which affect dialectal codeswitching and other verbal encoding strategies used by language teachers and t

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00125.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Three main issues relating to the question of silent speech in reading are addressed: 1) How do Chinese speakers process Chinese ideographs in short‐term memory? 2) How is Chinese students' learning of written English affected by the transition to an alphabetic language? 3) Are the strategies for encoding written words in short‐term memory different for students of diverse language background? Chinese and Spanish bilingual students were tested for short‐term memory encoding strategies on word‐recognition tests. Chinese speakers were found to encode Chinese ideographs phonologically, but both Chinese and Spanish learners of English were found to encode English words visually. Implications for the acquisition of reading are discussed in terms of a two‐st

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00126.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The theoretical linguistic distinction between assertion and presupposition was empirically tested with two groups of subjects—young children acquiring English as their first language and adults acquiring English as a second language. The distinction was tested via measurement of the frequency of perceptual errors as a function of differences between asserted information and presupposed information in cleft and pseudo‐cleft sentence patterns. Subjects heard a cleft or pseudo‐cleft sentence prior to presentation of a slide picture in which the asserted or presupposed noun phrase was misrepresented. The task was to decide if the sentence correctly described the picture. Results indicated that, for both groups of subjects, significantly more errors occurred when the misrepresentation involved the presupposed noun phrase than when it involved the asserted noun p

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00127.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The acquisition of French by two six‐year old boys, native speakers of English, was observed longitudinally. Form‐meaning relations in their spontaneous multi‐word utterances were compared to the form‐meaning relations observed, in previous research, in the speech of two‐year old English L1 and French L1 children, at a similar level of linguistic development. The same fairly limited set of form‐meaning relations accounted for the majority of both L1 and L2 learners' utterances over the period of the longitudinal observations. However, in the speech of the L1 learners, a sequence of emergence of relations or groups of relations had been observed whereas, for L2 learners, no clear developmental sequence was apparent. This difference was seen as a reflection of the fact that L1 learners' linguistic development is closely tied to cognitive development. L2 learners, cognitively more mature, encoded a greater variety of meanings even when their knowledge of the language was extremely limited. They achieved this variety by the use of pro‐forms whose meanings they

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00128.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In this paper, the acquisition of Swedish syntax of negation by adult second‐language learners has been studied. Insights into the route of acquisition have been gained through a close examination of the learners' variation in their placement of the negative element, i.e., the way in which some learners variably place the negation before and after the finite verb. This type of variation has previously been seen as random and irregular, but through application of devices for the study of variable data, such asimplicational scales(DeCamp 1971), variable rules (Labov 1969) andlinguisticcontinua (DeCamp 1971, Bickerton 1975), it has been possible to discover regular patterns in the variation. Such regularities have previously been found in sound system acquisition by second‐language learners (L. Dickerson 1975, W. Dickerson 1976).The route of acquisition has been found to be highly regular for the group of 160 subjects who were examined in this study, and furthermore, independent of differences in background factors of the learners, such as length of education and knowledge of foreign languages. Most interestingly, the route of acquisition has also been found to be the same for learners with different source languages.Thus the findings reported in this paper suggest that the process of acquisition of grammatical structures is a regular and dynamic one, in that there is a successive and continuous transition from one state to another. The behavior of a group of backsliders in the same syntactic area has also been studied. It is found that what is acquired last is also the first to be given up. These findings are in agreement with the Jakobsonian view of a natural sequence in language acquisition and language l

ISSN:0023-8333    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1977.tb00129.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1977

数据来源: WILEY