摘要:

Recent research into the processes of children's first and second language development has yielded a number of insights which have been combined to create the communicative language teaching model. This model should be useful to English as a second language (ESL) teachers, both in planning their own instruction and in advising the increasing numbers of regular classroom teachers with limited English‐speaking (LES) students in their classes. This article summarizes the central assumptions of the communicative language teaching model and specifies the potential difficulties that regular classroom teachers may face in adopting it. It then presents seven criteria to be used in organizing communicative classrooms and describes specific applications of these criteria to decisions about organizing classroom interaction and the physical environmen

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586272

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The study reported in this article examined the relationship between age and second language (L2) achievement of adults in an instructional setting. Older (aged 25 to 41) and younger (aged 17 to 24) learners were compared with respect to short‐term development in aural comprehension. The adult subjects, native speakers of Quebec French with limited L2 proficiency, were military personnel learning English in an intensive program. A pretest/post‐test procedure was used to assess gains made by subjects in listening and to compare groups. In analyzing gains, two matched‐pair samples were used, each comprised of 18 pairs of older and younger subjects matched on five variables: informal exposure, pretest score, nonverbal IQ, education, and previous ESL instruction. In both samples, the mean gain was significantly greater for younger subjects than for older subjects. In addition, stepwise regression analysis showed age, along with pretest score, to be an important predictor of post‐test (achievement) score; other variables were not significant. The study suggests that in adult L2 learners, rate of achievement in aural comprehension decreases with increasing age. Implications of this finding for adult L2 instruction are di

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586273

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This article discusses a new genre in ESL materials—the increasingly popular survival texts designed for newly arrived adults. A wide range of selections from these texts is examined in light of the stated goals of curriculum writers, as well as the less obvious social implications of these materials. In view of the explicit concern with realistic context, texts are evaluated in terms of both how accurately they reflect the immigrants' reality and the extent to which they mayshapethat reality. Examination of excerpts reveals that frequently, neither the situational content nor the communicative structure of materials reflects authentic interaction. Furthermore, the texts often prepare students for subservient social roles and reinforce hierarchical relations within the classroom by precluding the creation of meaning and the development of critical thinking skills. Finally, Freire's (1981) distinction between problem‐solving and problem‐posing pedagogues is suggested as a framework for interpreting the shortcomings of the survival genre and for moving toward a more empowering mode of curri

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586274

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Traditionally, vocabulary study has been based on a word‐by‐word approach and, as such, has often been criticized as a component in ESL curricula. This study compares a traditional approach to vocabulary instruction with an approach based on the semantic fields of words that appeared in college‐level reading texts. Half of the words presented to experimental groups (semantic field approach) were randomly selected and presented to control groups (traditional approach), according to the format used in current vocabulary texts. The semantic field approach was based on the association between five related words and a keyword that could be mentally substituted in context. Testing revealed some short‐term advantage for the control groups, but no significant differences were revealed on long‐term testing. Since experimental groups were exposed to twice as many words in the same amount of time, the findings lend support to the use of the semantic field approach. In addition, long‐term testing revealed, for the words in this study, a highly significant difference favoring vocabulary taught experimentally over incidental learning that may occur during exposure to acade

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586275

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Organizational problems in academic writing by second language learners are often attributed to interference, or negative transfer, from the first language, but recent research suggests that developmental factors may be relevant. In the case of Chinese, an examination of classical texts and modern works on Chinese composition found no support for claims that the organizational pattern of Chinese writing differs markedly from that of English. Hence, language transfer seems more likely to help than to interfere. In regard to developmental factors, research in first language composition indicates that organization develops late and can be influenced by appropriate composition practices. For the group of Chinese students studied, a comparison of composition practices in Hong Kong and British Columbia indicated that their school experience with English composition was oriented more toward accuracy at the sentence level than toward the development of appropriate discourse organization. A survey of these students also suggested that they saw their current writing problems as sentence‐level problems. These findings point to a need for greater awareness of students' native literacy and educational experience as factors influencing the development of academic writing in a second languag

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586276

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Although research on the cloze test has offered differing evidence regarding what language abilities it measures, there is a general consensus among researchers that not all the deletions in a given cloze passage measure exactly the same abilities. An important issue for test developers, therefore, is the extent to which it is possible to design cloze tests that measure specific abilities.Two cloze tests were prepared from the same text. In one, different types of deletions were made according to the range of context required for closure, while in the other a fixed‐ratio deletion procedure was followed. These tests were administered to 910 university and pre‐university students, including both native and non‐native speakers of English, with approximately half assigned at random to take the fixed‐ratio test and the other half taking the rationally deleted test.While both tests were equally reliable and had equal criterion validity, the fixed‐ratio test was significantly more difficult. Analyses of responses to different types of deletions suggest that the difficulty of cloze items is a function of the range of syntactic and discourse context required for closure. The study also provides practical and empirically supported criteria for making rational deletions and suggests that cloze tests can be designed to measure a range of

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586277

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Recent research on cognition has indicated the importance of learning strategies in gaining command over second language skills. Despite these recent advancements, important research questions related to learning strategies remain to be answered. These questions concern 1) the range and frequency of learning strategy uses by students learning English as a second language (ESL) and 2) the effects of training in learning strategies on English language skills. This study, which was conducted with high school ESL students, was carried out in two phases corresponding to the two research questions. In Phase I, ESL students and their teachers were interviewed to identify strategies associated with a range of tasks typically found in ESL classrooms and in other settings. Results indicated that students used a variety of learning strategies but typically used more familiar strategies and applied them to discrete‐point rather than integrative tasks. In Phase II, ESL students were randomly assigned to receive learning strategies training on vocabulary, listening, and speaking tasks. Results varied depending on the task but generally indicated that strategy training can be effective for integrative language tasks. Results are discussed in terms of implications for teaching and future researc

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586278

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586279

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586280

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586281

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY