Language teaching · Language teaching Language teaching 04–538 Allford, D. Institute of...

Language teaching

Language teaching

04–538 Allford, D. Institute of Education,University of London. [email protected]‘Grasping the nettle’: aspects of grammar in the

mother tongue and foreign languages. LanguageLearning Journal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 24–32.

The ‘nettle’ in the title to this paper is explicit grammarinstruction (EGI). This is examined in relation torecent curriculum developments in Britain in two areas:first language (L1) teaching and foreign language (FL)teaching. In the first section, the author gives a historicalreview of developments in L1 grammar teaching beforeturning to the National Literacy Strategy (NLS). Itis argued that the NLS necessitates teaching fromlists of items, and imposes EGI in a decontextualisedway. Missed opportunities for research on the NLS inBritain are highlighted. In the second section the authorexamines FL teaching, discussing the transfer of L1metalinguistic awareness. Traditional grammar teachingbased on ‘accumulated entities’ is considered alongwith alternatives such as a move from declarative toprocedural knowledge and developing a ‘spiral’ syllabuswhich revisits grammatical items. Finally the uses andlimitations of grammatical rules in L1 and FL teachingare discussed. The author concludes that the NLS placesundue emphasis on decontextualised language study, butargues for the use of some grammar rules in both L1and FL teaching.

04–539 Alvarez, Inma (The Open U., UK).Consideraciones sobre la contribucion de los

ordenadores en el aprendizaje de lenguas

extranjeras. [The contribution of computers toforeign language learning.] Vida Hispanica (Rugby,UK), 28 (2003), 19–23.

This paper claims that much still remains to be learnedconcerning the contribution of computers to foreignlanguage learning. Only cautious recognition has sofar been given to the potential of computers to offersynchronous and asynchronous communication and thisis due to an insistence on the traditional objectiveof FL learning as face-to-face communication withnative speakers. This attitude has distracted attentionaway from the educational benefits of asynchronouselectronic communication. This paper argues for thesebenefits as an alternative mode of interaction with itsown characteristics. It also discusses the interculturalproblems which such global communication bringswith it. It is concluded that there is a growing necessityto incorporate computer-mediated communicationinto foreign language learning since this represents onemore means of real communication which requiresspecific linguistic and sociolinguistic competence. It isalso suggested that such a move requires the revision of

educational objectives in language courses and adequatepreparation and training of staff.

04–540 Arkoudis, S. (U. of Melbourne, Australia;Email: [email protected]). Teaching

English as a second language in science classes:

incommensurate epistemologies? Language andEducation (Clevedon, UK), 17, 3 (2003), 161–173.

Over the last 15 years there has been a world-wide trend in English-speaking countries towards themainstreaming of English as a Second Language (ESL).This paper argues that the notion of mainstreaming hasnot been adequately researched. While policy makerssee it as ESL teachers cooperating with subject specialistsin planning curriculum tasks for the ESL learners,the reality is very different. On the basis of researchundertaken in Victoria, Australia, the author exploresthe epistemological authority of an ESL teacher whenplanning curriculum with a science teacher. Shesuggests that subject specialists have a stronger epistem-ological authority than ESL teachers – they work indepartments that have a strong, enclosed communityidentity, whereas the ESL community is less easilyidentified, since they are teaching language acrossseveral subject areas. The argument is put for theneed to explore the distinct discourse communities thatteachers belong to in order to understand how teacherscan negotiate shared epistemological constructs.Implications for teacher education are discussed.

04–541 Bandin, Francis and Ferrer, Margarita

(Manchester Metropolitan U., UK). Estereotıpicos.[Stereotypes.] Vida Hispanica. Association forLanguage Learning (Rugby, UK), 28 (2003), 4–12.

This paper studies classroom activities focussing oncultural stereotypes against the background of currentimmigration in Spain. The objective of this teachingunit is to create the opportunity for students tofamiliarise themselves with a topical subject and contrasttheir own ideas with those currently presented inthe media. The first section describes procedures andaudio-visual materials in three consecutive hour-longclassroom sessions. The paper then goes on to discussresults from piloting of these activities with high-intermediate and advanced level Spanish students. Afull description and samples of the materials used in thesessions are included in the appendix.

04–542 Banno, Eri (Okayama University). A

cross-cultural survey of students’ expectations

Lang. Teach. 36, 252–283. DOI: 10.1017/S0261444804002009 Printed in the United Kingdom c© 2003 Cambridge University Press 252

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■ Language teachingof foreign language teachers. Foreign LanguageAnnals, 36, 3 (2003), 339–346.

This study investigates the expectations of foreignlanguage teachers held by students from differentcultures. The author begins by providing backgroundinformation on research into teacher effectiveness andwhat is considered to be good teaching. There followsa description of the study, whose purpose was todiscover students’ views of good foreign languageteachers, as well as similarities and differences inthese views across cultures. A total of 313 Japanese,American, and Chinese college students participated inthe study. A questionnaire listing 18 attributes of goodteachers was developed and administered to participants.Chi-square statistics and the Spearman rank-ordercorrelation coefficient were used to analyze the data.Results show that students from all three groups placedimportance on qualities such as “explain clearly”,“motivates students”, and “approachable”. Japanese andChinese students showed similar expectations of foreignlanguage teachers. Chinese participants placed moreimportance on pronunciation than did the Japaneseand the Americans. While Japanese valued entertaining,impartial, open-minded and reliable teachers morethan the Americans, the Americans valued creativeand patient teachers more than the Japanese studentsdid.

04–543 Barron, Colin (U. of Hong Kong, HongKong; Email: [email protected]).Problem-solving and EAP: themes and issues in

a collaborative teaching venture. English forSpecific Purposes (Amsterdam, The Netherlands),22, 3 (2003), 297–314.

This paper investigates two issues that are importantto English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The firstis the issue of collaboration between subject teachersand EAP teachers and the problem of reconciling whatappear to be incommensurable discourses. The secondissue is the difference between task-based learning(TBL) and problem-based learning (PBL). The specificsituation is collaboration on a course for second-year Science students between the English Centreand the Science Faculty at the University of HongKong, which was not in fact particularly successful.The problems with the course are discussed in termsof a framework of methodology, epistemology andontology in order to explain both success and failurein collaborative ventures. This philosophical focus isconsidered necessary in order to explain a paradox:while the philosophies of functionalism in EAP andrealism in Science share a common philosophicalbackground, they conflict at the ontological level. Thisconflict precludes collaboration and becomes apparentwhen TBL and PBL are compared using the framework.The paper concludes that the constructivist philosophyof the latter offers a better possibility for collaborationthan functionalism.

04–544 Bartley, Belinda (Lord Williams’s School,Thame). Developing learning strategies in

writing French at key stage 4. Francophonie(London, UK), 28 (2003), 10–17.

This article discusses a project undertaken with twoGCSE French classes and provides results from the firstyear of this project. Through two Best Practice ResearchScholarships (BPRS), over the last two academic years,the author has carried out an intervention studyin which learning strategies in writing French wereintroduced to two GCSE classes. The article beginswith an outline of the project and a description of thestrategies developed in the first year of the project, andthe “drip-feed” approach to the training. The articlethen continues with a discussion of the qualitativedata collected through student questionnaires relatingto their perceptions of writing French. The authorconcludes that pupils have benefited from the strategytraining and then comments on the way in which theproject has continued during its second year and theimplications for further research and development atkey stages 3 and 5.

04–545 Bax, S. (Canterbury Christ ChurchUniversity College). The end of CLT: a context

approach to language teaching. ELT Journal(Oxford, UK), 57, 3 (2003), 278–287.

This article argues that the dominance of CLT has ledto the neglect of the context in which that pedagogytakes place. The author argues CLT, as the centralparadigm in language teaching, should now be replacedwith a Context Approach which places context at theheart of the profession. The article presents data fromteachers and language teaching conferences to supportthe view that CLT has outlived its usefulness. The articlepresents data to support a position that such a shift isalready taking place. The paper concludes by outliningthe features of the Context Approach and discussingits implications. The author identifies those features ofcontext which have an impact on an individual learner’slanguage acquisition.

04–546 Caballero, Rodriguez (UniversidadJaume I, Campus de Borriol, Spain; Email:[email protected]). How to talk shop

through metaphor: bringing metaphor research

to the ESP classroom. English for SpecificPurposes (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 22, 2(2003), 177–194.

This paper explores the role and function of metaphorin the genre of the building review within architecturediscourse, and suggests ways in which research intoits textual and communicative function might beuseful to those involved in creating ESP materials forstudents of architecture whose first language is notEnglish. The author argue that genre and metaphorare two key cognitive and sociolinguistic mechanismsbuilding up the content and formal schemas involved

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Language teaching ■in discourse interactions. On this basis, he claims thatthe incorporation of both in a co-ordinated fashionin the ESP classroom may maximise their heuristicpotential in teaching future architects when, whereand how to use the metaphors that make up part oftheir future jargon and help shape the new culturethey are about to enter. This would facilitate thelanguage-mediated, disciplinary enculturation processthat ultimately renders ESP teaching truly meaningful.

04–547 Field, J. (University of Leeds). Promoting

perception: lexical segmentation in L2 listening.ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 4 (2003), 325–334.

This paper argues that greater attention needs tobe paid to the perceptual processes involved insecond language listening. The writer makes a casefor greater understanding of the part perceptualprocesses play in breakdowns of understanding. Thepaper suggests employing basic auditory phoneticsas a means of classifying, diagnosing, and predictingproblems of lexical segmentation. The author suggeststhat recognition of how and why learners findspeech input difficult to process can provide aprogramme of simple practice exercises which anticipateor rectify listening problems. The author sees animportant challenge for teachers in recognizing learners’perceptual difficulties and providing such intensivepractice. By embracing such practice, teachers may beable to better understand learners’ problems in bothperception and comprehension.

04–548 Finkbeiner, Matthew and Nicol, Janet

(U. of Arizona, AZ, USA; Email: [email protected]).Semantic category effects in second language

word learning. Applied Psycholinguistics(Cambridge, UK), 24, 3 (2003), 369–384.

There is a long-standing assumption, based on researchin first language (L1) use, but with little empiricalevidence from second language (L2) research, thatit is more effective to present vocabulary items insemantically grouped sets. The authors of this articlesuggest that learning semantically related L2 wordstakes longer, but might produce more effective learningin terms of retrieval of vocabulary during productionand comprehension. To test this, 47 undergraduateparticipants were taught new labels (32 created words,matched with pictures) for familiar concepts. Arecognition task and two blocks of translation in eachdirection (L2–L1 and L1–L2) were used, with thetranslation times recorded for analysis. Times werefound to be significantly slower for words learnedin semantic sets than for those learned in randomorder. There was also an adverse effect, not significant,when the words to be translated were presented insemantic categories. Reasons for this, related to thesimultaneous activation of semantically related items,are outlined. The authors conclude that teaching wordsin semantic sets does not aid learning, but rather createscompetition between items, increasing difficulty both

during learning and in memory retrieval in languageproduction.

04–549 Frazier, S. (University of California). A

corpus analysis of would-clauses without

adjacent if-clauses. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria,VA, USA), 37, 3 (2003), 443–466.

This article sets out to demonstrate empiricallythe quantitative prevalence of counterfactual andhypothetical conditions. The author claims that theseare very often contextually implied rather than explicitlystated. The study uses corpus analysis of clauses thatcontain the modal ‘would’ to signify hypotheticaland counterfactual meaning. The paper also examines‘would’ in EFL/ESL textbooks and conducts a closeanalysis of spoken and written texts. The studyemploys both quantitative and qualitative methodologyto categorizes the conditional and hypothetical uses ofwould-clauses in spoken and written corpora. It usesUsing MonoConc software and the author analyses acorpora drawn from three American English sources.The paper claims that although hypothetical andcounterfactual clauses are quite fixed in their use ofthe modal ‘would’, features of ‘marking’ are muchmore variable. The author suggests that there may bebenefits in achieving a balance between qualitative andquantitative accounting of corpus data, in particular thatqualitative analysis can reveal diversity of environmentsin which a structure may appear.

04–550 Harwood, Nigel (Canterbury ChristChurch University College, UK). Taking a lexical

approach to teaching: principles and problems.International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Oxford,UK), 12, 2 (2002), 139–155.

After briefly reviewing some of the reasons why thetraditional grammar/vocabulary distinction is no longeradequate, this article describes two key principles whichare claimed to be at the core of teaching in a lexicalapproach: 1. Teach real language, not ‘TEFLese’; 2.Recycle and revisit. There are, however, a number ofmajor difficulties which necessarily co-occur alongsideany attempted classroom implementation. Havingdiscussed how these difficulties may be overcome, thearticle closes by conceding that there is still much workto be done, in developing both a ‘principled foundation’and the practicalities of implementation, before a lexicalapproach can hope to become more fully integrated intothe mainstream ELT coursebook.

04–551 Hird, Bernard (Edith Cowan U., Australia;Email: [email protected]). What are language

teachers trying to do in their lessons? Babel,(Adelaide, Australia) 37, 3 (2003), 24–29.

This study was intended to identify the principles thatinform the lesson practices of three language teachers,and find out why they did what they did in their lessons.Data were obtained from classes in German, French, and

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■ Language teachingItalian in the first year of secondary school (in WesternAustralia). The procedures adopted (observation andfollow-up interviews) are described. Three commonprinciples emerged which informed classroom practice:language learning is a cumulative, building process; theaffective dimension of the learners is all-important;emphasis is placed on autonomous and independentlearning. Some of the constraints on these principles(mainly imposed by examinations) are also discussed.

04–552 Ho, Y-K. (Ming Hsin University ofScience and Technology, Taiwan). Audiotaped

dialogue journals: an alternative form of

speaking practice. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 3(2003), 269–277.

This study investigates the use of audiotaped dialoguejournals to provide greater opportunities for EFLlearners to improve oral communication. The authorcollected a number of taped journal entries andresponded to them over an 18 week period. The authorclaims that this form of journal keeping offers a numberof language and affective benefits. It is suggested thatstudents use a greater range of strategies, secure abroader basis for language acquisition, gain additionallanguage input and activate the language for output.The author suggests a number of ways in which tapedjournaling can be integrated into classroom languagelearning activities.

04–553 Huang, Jingzi (Monmouth University,West Long Branch, NJ, USA). Chinese as a foreign

language in Canada: a content-based

programme for elementary school. Language,Culture and Curriculum (), 16, 1 (2003), 70–89.

Programmes of content-based language teaching canbe unsatisfactory because they either use the contentto teach the target language or use the language toteach the content – they do not often teach both inparallel. A parallel approach is also usually consideredsuitable only for learners who already have someknowledge of the target language. This paper reportson a content-based approach in a language programmeof Mandarin Chinese for young beginners in a Canadianelementary school. The theoretical background wasbased on the concept of ‘Knowledge Frameworks’(Mohan 1986), which can be sub-divided into six‘Knowledge Structures’. These in turn can be used asthe basis of activities for combining language trainingwith development of content knowledge (in this case,the culture that goes with the language). The authorconcludes from the findings that this can be a suitableapproach for young beginners. The children not only‘learned by doing’, but also learned why the languagewas used in a certain way. The findings have implicationsfor the teaching of other languages. Suggestions forfurther research are put forward.

04–554 Kennedy, G. (Victoria University ofWellington). Amplifier collocations in the British

National Corpus: implications for English

language teaching. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria,VA, USA), 37, 3 (2003), 467–487.

This study sets out to examine how adverbs of degreecollocate with particular words in the 100-million-word British National Corpus. The article suggeststhat a mutual information measure can be used toshow the strength of the bond between amplifiers (suchas ‘extremely’ or ‘greatly’) and other words (typicallyadjectives or participles such as ‘rare’ or ‘appreciated’).Using corpus analysis, the author investigates thecollocations associated with 24 amplifiers. The authorclaims that some amplifiers do not fit comfortablywith certain adjectives and are not as interchangeableor synonymous as previously thought. He providescollocational data for both boosters and maximisers.The paper offers pedagogical suggestions based on thesefindings and claims that this kind of data can revealsomething of the cognitive processes that lie behindlanguage learning and language use and so is particularlyvaluable to language teachers.

04–555 Kissau, Scott P. (U. of Windsor, UK &Greater Essex County District School Board; Email:[email protected]). The relationship

between school environment and effectiveness

in French immersion. The Canadian Journal ofApplied Linguistics (Ottawa, Canada), 6, 1 (2003),87–104.

The purpose of this study undertaken in BritishColumbia, Canada, was to investigate the relationshipbetween school environment and effectiveness inFrench teaching. The two settings investigated werethe immersion-centre school, where all students wereinvolved in the French immersion program, and thedual-track school, in which the French immersionand regular English program co-existed. Questionnaireswere developed to gather relevant information fromstudents in Grade 7 and from teachers in both schoolsettings. The investigation determined that immersion-centre students were perceived, by both teachers andstudents, to be exposed to more French and less peerpressure than their dual-track counterparts. It was alsodetermined that there were no significant differencesbetween the two groups in regards to student use ofFrench or student and teacher satisfaction with theprogram. In conclusion, it is suggested that teachers andadministrators at dual-track schools attempt to recreatethe perceived advantageous conditions at immersion-centre schools in order to maximize student exposureto French and to improve school atmosphere.

04–556 Laurent, Maurice (Messery). De la

grammaire implicite a la grammaire explicite.[From Implicit Grammar to Explicit Grammar.]Tema, 2 (2003), 40–47.

This paper discusses the application of the gram-maticalisation process in the classroom, and it provides

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Language teaching ■a practical example using a word class board as ateaching tool. The first part of the paper describesthe various sections on the board: each section has adifferent colour and represents a word class. There areno words on the board, only coloured sections. It isargued that such a board helps the students to buildon their intuitive grammatical knowledge without usinggrammatical terminology. Hence, the board can be usedwith young children learning their mother tongue orwith learners of a foreign language. The second part ofthe paper presents a lesson in which the board is used.The teacher introduces a simple sentence, such as “Cepanneau muet, l’avez-vous bien regarde” [This blankboard, have you looked at it well?]. Using a pointer,the teacher first associates the words in the sentence tocolored sections. A student is then asked to do the samething with another sentence, and so on. In the third partof the article, the author explains the teacher’s role inthis kind of lesson. For instance, the teacher has to selecta corpus suitable for the students and has to have faith intheir abilities. In conclusion, it is claimed that followingthe first steps of grammaticalisation as introduced in thispaper, the students are ready for grammar definitionsand grammar metalanguage.

04–557 Lear, Darcy (The Ohio State University,USA). Using technology to cross cultural and

linguistic borders in Spanish language

classrooms. Hispania (Ann Arbor, USA), 86, 3(2003), 541–551.

Many Spanish-language classrooms in the USA relylargely on ‘authentic’ technological resources suchas videos, CD-ROMs and Internet sources to bringculture into the classroom. This paper addresses theproblem of there often being a discrepancy betweenthose who decide what educational technology will beused and those who are charged with implementingit. The technical expertise of the two groups oftenfalls short of that required to use the technology inquestions. It is also argued that these technologies,especially the Internet, often reinforce the internationaldominance of English language and North Americanculture. Both teachers and students must be criticalin their approach to both the term ‘authenticity’and the sources of ‘authentic’ materials: educationalmaterials devised for language-teaching purposes oftenhave a cultural bias that makes them unsuitable. Theimportance is also emphasised of teachers’ roles inguiding students to question ‘authenticity’ and itssources. Several suggestions are made for the use ofnew technologies in the implementation of culture andlanguage learning.

04–558 Leeser, Michael J. (University of Illianosat Urbana-Champaign, USA; Email: [email protected]). Learner proficiency and focus on form

during collaborative dialogue. LanguageTeaching Research, 8, 1 (2004), 55.

One of the challenges in content-based instruction insecond language classrooms is how to focus on form in

a way that is both effective and appropriate. The use ofcollaborative tasks that push learners to consciously re-flect on their own language use (i.e. produce ‘language –reflected episodes’) while conveying meaning has beenproposed as one way to accomplish this goal. Thestudy reported in this article investigated how groupinglearners by their relative proficiency (high-high, high-low, or low-low) affected the amount, type (lexicalor grammatical) and outcome (correct, unresolved orincorrect) of language related episodes produced duringa passage reconstruction task, completed by twenty-onepairs of adult L2 Spanish learners from a content basedcourse. The findings revealed that the proficiency ofthe dyad members affected how much dyads focused onform, the types of forms they focused on as well as howsuccessful they were in resolving the language problemsthey encountered.

04–559 Levis, John M. (Iowa State University,USA) and Grant, Linda. Integrating

pronunciation into ESL/EFL classrooms. TESOLJournal, 12 (2003), 13–19.

Approaches advocating the integration of pronunciationinto oral communication in the classroom have beenembraced for over a decade, yet teachers have receivedlittle clear direction in this area. This article addressesthe practical challenges of integrating pronunciationinto oral communication. Traditionally, work onpronunciation is included as ad hoc correctionsduring speaking practice, and many integrated-skillstextbooks do not provide an explicit sustained focus onpronunciation. The authors go on to suggest principlesto guide the incorporation of pronunciation into oralcommunication courses, and provide four activitiesdemonstrating how key pronunciation features can beincorporated into tasks designed to help students in theoral communication skills development. The authorsargue that suprasegmental features are more likely thansegmental features to be directly relevant to skill in usingthe spoken language, as they are more clearly connectedto functions of spoken English. Thus, the activitiesprovided focus for the most part on suprasegmentals,such as stress, rhythm, and intonation.

04–560 Mitchell, R. (Centre for Language inEducation, University of Southampton; Email:[email protected]) Rethinking the concept of

progression in the National Curriculum for

Modern Foreign Languages: a research

perspective. Language Learning Journal (Rugby,UK), 27 (2003), 15–23.

This paper looks at problems in the language theoryunderlying the UK National Curriculum for ModernForeign Languages (NCMFL). The author first of allreviews the rise of the NCMFL, tracing the currentstate of foreign language learning from the post-warperiod onwards. The paper then discusses some ‘designproblems’ of the NCMFL, and comments on aspectswhich could have benefited from current research. The

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■ Language teaching‘ladder’ metaphor of language development is criticisedalong with the ‘four skills’ pattern and an overemphasison accuracy. The author goes on to discuss teacherimplementation and student response to the NCMFL,relating it to government goals at each key stage.Finally the paper examines current research on learnerprogression and how effective teaching can speed upthis process. The author argues for a much greatercontribution of research to MFL syllabus in the UK.

04–561 Moffitt, Gisela (Central Michigan U.,USA). Beyond Struwwelpeter: using German

picture books for cultural exploration. DieUnterrichtspraxis (Cherry Hill, NJ, USA), 36, 1(2003), 15–27.

In recent years, the inclusion of authentic texts inforeign language teaching has become an acceptedpractice due to the emphasis on communicative andcontent-based language instruction. The goals of theseapproaches are to gain knowledge and understandingof other cultures, to develop insight into the natureof language, and to communicate with speakers ofthe target language. In this article, the author sharesher experiences of reading German picture books inintermediate language classes. She briefly discusses thehistory of German children’s books since 1945. She thenaddresses the advantages and possible problems relatedto using such books, providing practical suggestions fortheir use. Finally, using one specific book as an example,she demonstrates how these books may be taught. Theauthor concludes with her view that using picturebooks can be a rewarding experience, arguing that theyare most useful in intermediate language courses forexploring cultural similarities and differences.

04–562 Morley, J. and Truscott, S. (University ofManchester; Email: [email protected]). The

integration of research-oriented learning into a

Tandem learning programme. Language LearningJournal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 52–58.

This paper describes research into the Tandem learningprogramme at Manchester University in the 2001/2002academic year. British and visiting Erasmus students –French, Spanish, Italian and German – are paired andrequired to undertake collaborative tasks together toproduce a ‘learning dossier’. While the tasks for thishave previously been teacher directed, for the year inquestion the tasks were re-designed to allow studentsto become more active learners. Pairs were requiredto negotiate and work towards shared goals. This‘enquiry-based approach’ called for students to becomeresearchers of the target language. Each pair chose oneof four research-based learning tasks to complete, forexample a contrastive analysis of two newspapers in theirpartner’s country, though the great majority chose themore traditional translation task. The outcomes werepositive, with most students achieving firsts and 2:1sfor the work. Students felt the collaborative project wasinteresting and helped them to achieve linguistic insights

into the nature of language and language learning. Thepaper ends with suggestions for improvements in theweighting of tasks and the staging of students’ work.

04–563 Oliver, Rhonda (Edith Cowan U.,Australia; Email: [email protected]) and

Mackey, Alison. Interactional context and

feedback in child ESL classrooms. The ModernLanguage Journal (Madison, WI, USA), 87, 4(2003), 519–533.

This article reports on an empirical investigation ofthe role of interactional context in exchanges betweenteachers and learners, in this case children with lowlevel proficiency, in ESL classrooms. The teacher–learner exchanges were categorized as being primarilyfocused on content, communication, management, orexplicit language. Results suggest that the context of theexchange affected both teachers’ provision of feedbackand learners’ modifications to their original utterancesfollowing feedback. Teachers were most likely toprovide feedback in exchanges that were focused onexplicit language and content; learners were most likelyto use feedback provided in explicit language-focusedexchanges. Feedback was seldom used in contentexchanges and never in management contexts. Thisstudy suggests that the importance of the interactionalcontext should not be underestimated when discussingfeedback in second language classroom settings. Theauthors point out how results may have differed foradolescents, adults or any learners with different levelsof proficiency. They conclude that findings point to thedesirability of more finely-grained analyses.

04–564 Pachler, N. (Institute of Education,University of London; Email: [email protected]).Foreign language teaching as an

evidence-based profession? Language LearningJournal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 4–14.

The writer describes his paper as a ‘general’ introductionto recent developments in educational policy makingin the UK. This analysis of the uneasy relationshipbetween teaching and research compares ‘evidence-based’ and ‘evidence-informed’ practices, suggesting thelatter is best in terms of educational policy. Pachlercomments that politicians and thus policies often tendtowards short-term strategies with tangible benefits.There is often a lack of reference to current secondand foreign language (FL) acquisition research and anassumption of a linear progression in language learning.While FL research is frequently exploratory in natureand sometimes contradictory, the case is made for an‘integrative’ view of research. The writer questionsthe notion of often-used government term of ‘bestpractice’ as inappropriate. The paper concludes bycalling for more dialogue between researchers andteachers, pointing out the benefits each group canoffer the other in working towards evidence-informedpractice.

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Language teaching ■04–565 Portmann-Tselikas, Paul R.

(Karl-Franzens Universitat Graz, Austria).Grammatikunterricht als Schule der

Aufmerksamkeit. Zur Rolle grammatischen

Wissens im gesteuerten Spracherwerb.[Grammar teaching as a training of noticing. Therole of grammatical knowledge in formal languagelearning.] Babylonia (Switzerland, www.babylonia),2 (2003), 9–18.

This article thoroughly examines the role of grammarteaching in foreign language pedagogy. Firstly, theauthor draws a clear distinction between three types ofgrammar: a) grammar as produced by native speakers,b) grammar as knowledge about a language andc) grammar as produced by learners. Particular attentionis drawn to the second type, declarative grammaticalknowledge. This knowledge itself is not the driver of theforeign language development – indeed, many learnersare able to learn a foreign language without being taughtgrammar, by deducing the rules from communicationin the target language. Nevertheless, its potential shouldnot be ignored. Teaching of grammar directs learners’attention to target structures (noticing) and increasestheir language awareness. It enables them to take bettercontrol of the learning process and hence to be moreeffective in real communicative situations. Subsequently,the author introduces a concept of receptive grammar–‘Rezeptive Grammatik’, which in contrast to traditionalproduct-orientated approaches, focuses on the semanticside of grammar and in so doing facilitates reflections ontarget language structures. Finally, the author proposesa range of teaching ideas based on reception andreflection.

04–566 Purvis, K. (Email: [email protected])and Ranaldo, T. Providing continuity in learning

from Primary to Secondary. Babel, 38, 1 (2003),(Adelaide, Australia), 13–18.

This paper describes a collaborative project conductedby a high school teacher and a primary school teacher,both teachers of German in South Australia. Theproject goal was to improve the transition for studentscontinuing with German at high school. Currentproblems were identified, including the possibility thatprimary school German was insufficiently valued byboth primary and high school teachers. Over two yearsthe project involved liaison between primary principals,the trialling of a textbook for primary German anddiscussion of assessment at both levels of schooling.The collaboration proved highly successful with highschool teachers gaining a clearer understanding of theachievements of students at primary level. Both groupsof teachers learned from the experience and broughtabout changes in their own teaching situations.

04–567 Roman-Odio, Clara and Hartlaub,

Bradley A. (Kenyon College, Ohio, USA).Classroom assessment of Computer-Assisted

Language Learning: developing a strategy for

college faculty. Hispania (Ann Arbor, USA), 86, 3(2003), 592–607.

This paper looks at trends in CALL research andsuggests strategies for an objective classroom assessmentof CALL. In illustration, a case study is described, inwhich a music based multi-media programme used witha group of college students of Spanish was evaluated.The study was based on a ‘paired replicates design’, inwhich pre- and post-study scores of the same test arecompared. The results showed that the simultaneouspresentation of spoken and written language throughmultimedia can substantially improve listening skills andalso help reading skills, though to a less obvious degree.Appreciation of the target culture was also enhanced.Overall the study succeeded in identifying a viablemethodological avenue for the objective assessmentof CALL, aimed at evaluating and quantifying itseffectiveness in language acquisition. Details are givenof how the study was conducted and the challenges thatmay be found in this sort of study are discussed.

04–568 Schleppegrell, Mary J. (University ofCalifornia, Davis, USA) and Achugar, Mariana.

Learning language and learning history: a

functional linguistics approach. TESOL Journal,12, 2 (2003), 21–27.

Teachers involved in content-based ESL instructionneed strategies for dealing with the language itself.The authors report on activities which were designedusing the framework of systemic functional linguisticsin order to help teachers and learners unpack the denseand abstract language of history textbooks. A functionalanalysis analyses language from three perspectives: howit constructs a representation of the world, how itenacts social relationships, and how it transforms thosemeanings into a message. Analysing the types of verbprocesses represented in each clause of a text canhelp learners understand when writers are writingabout events, providing commentary, reporting whatothers have said, or describing the state of something.Identifying the participants involved and how they arerepresented, e.g. as individuals or as groups, and as agentsor receivers of action, can help learners understandgreater abstraction in the categorisation of people, andto understand the preconceptions of writers abouthistory. Analysing how the information is organised canhelp learners understand whether the text is about eitherabout how or why events occurred. These analysesprovide strategies to help learners not only improvetheir reading and other linguistic skills but also achievegrade-level standards in the content area.

04–569 Schoenbrodt, Lisa, Kerins, Marie and

Geseli, Jacqueline (Loyola College in Maryland,Baltimore, USA; Email: [email protected])Using narrative language intervention as a tool

to increase communicative competence in

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■ Language learningSpanish-speaking children. Language, Cultureand Curriculum (Clevedon, UK), 16, 1 (2003), 48–59.

In this paper a study is described which aimed to assessthe effectiveness of a narrative intervention programmeon the communicative competence of 12 primary-school Spanish-speakers, divided into an experimentalgroup and a control group. The efficacy of providing anarrative intervention in the learners’ native languagewas also examined, with one group being given anarrative in Spanish (mother tongue) and the othergroup in English (target language); the subjects weregiven narrative interventions of 2 types: story retellingand story generation. The findings of the study revealedthat the use of a narrative intervention increasedcommunicative competence markedly in both of thetwo groups, with that of the group that had the narrativeintervention in the mother tongue being even furtherenhanced. The assessment of the study was done bypre-test/post-test control group design. It is pointedout that the sample was very small and suggestions forfurther research with bigger samples are given.

04–570 Shen, Hwei-Jiun (National TaichungInstitute of Technology). The role of explicit

instruction in ESL/EFL reading. Foreign LanguageAnnals (New York, USA), 36, 3 (2003), 424–433.

In recent years, both implicit and explicit instructionhave become important in fostering reading ability,manifesting a conflict in perception as to how bestpromote reading competence. Whole language is an ex-ample of implicit instruction, as it embodies principlessuch as a child-centered curriculum, meaning-centeredinstructional approaches, reading materials chosen orcreated by learners, a literate classroom environment,and collaborative peer interaction. Explicit instructionis rooted in cognitive psychology, emphasizing learners’metacognition; in its approach for reading instruction,it underscores explicit modeling of informationprocessing. This article examines the existing literaturewith respect to both approaches for first languageinstruction at the word, text and sentence level. Thediscussion is expanded to included the role of explicitinstruction in reading English as a second or foreignlanguage, including its role at the word level in EFLreading in Taiwan. The author concludes by suggestingthat explicit instruction is a necessary tool for fosteringESL/EFL reading ability.

04–571 Sifakis, N. C. (Hellenic Open U., Greece;Email: [email protected]). Applying the adult

education framework to ESP curriculum

development: an integrative model. English forSpecific Purposes (Amsterdam, The Netherlands),22, 2 (2003), 195–211.

The paper brings together recent work in Englishfor specific purposes/languages for specific purposes(ESP/LSP) and adult education and puts forward anintegrative model for ESP curriculum design. It outlines

a set of characteristics that identify the ESP learnerwithin the general adult learning framework. Takingcurrent theories on the adult learner profile as a startingpoint, it then focuses on a model that associates adulteducation principles with effective ESP learning. Thismodel has two sides. One side requires the adult learner’sESP teacher to come to terms with adulthood-orientedconsiderations (i.e. issues unique to adult learning), suchas ‘mess-management’, motivation and adult learningcycles. The other side involves both a number of ELT-methodology-specific communicative strategies that areindispensable in the ESP class, such as self-directedlearning techniques, as well as enhancing the role of theESP teacher as counsellor. Some implications for theconstruction of CALL programmes are discussed andthe paper ends with the suggestion that all approachesto teaching learners in the ESP framework can benefitfrom the successful handling of both aspects of the earliermodel.

04–572 Simpson, R. and Mendis, D. (Universityof Michigan). A corpus-based study of idioms in

academic speech. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria,VA, USA), 37, 3 (2003), 419–441.

This study addresses the issue of which idioms shouldbe taught, given the vast inventory of idioms in a nativespeaker’s repertoire. The article sets out to assess theadvantages and limitations of a corpus-based approachto researching and teaching idioms in specific academicsub-genres. It also seeks to establish whether thereare more idioms used in interactive language than inmonologic language. The study draws on a specializedcorpus of 1.7 million words of academic discourse (TheMichigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English). Ituses Wordsmith Tools to produce frequency counts foreach selected idiom. The authors identify the pragmaticfunction of idioms for evaluation, description, emphasis,collaboration and metalanguage. The study finds thatsub-genres of academic language do not significantlyvary in the proportion of idiomatic use but thatthat differences are noticeable in individual writings.Consequently the authors suggest that variation is morelikely to be a factor of individual idiolect. Pedagogicalapplications are suggested and the paper finishes with aplea for more context and corpus based approaches toteaching idioms.

Language learning

04–573 Akker, Evelien (Nijmegen U., TheNetherlands; Email: [email protected]) and

Cutler, Anne. Prosodic cues to semantic

structure in native and non-native listening.Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge,UK), 6, 2 (2003), 81–96.

In native listeners’ processing of accentual structure,accented syllables receive rapid processing, and listenersactively direct attention to parts of an utterance whereaccent will fall. Listeners exploit cues in prosodic

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Language learning ■contour to locate as rapidly as possible the pointswhere accent occurs. As accent falls on semanticallycentral words, rapid and effective processing of accentplacement leads to efficient comprehension of meaning.Can non-native listeners process prosodic informationfor semantic structure as efficiently as native listeners?The investigation reported uses the predicted accenteffect and the question-induced focus effect to examinenative and non-native perceptual processing of thesemantic information conveyed by sentence accent.Participants in four experiments were speakers ofEnglish, tested in their native language, and Dutchstudents learning English, tested in Dutch and English.The prosodic structures of the two languages are verysimilar, and the same rules for accent assignment apply;thus Dutch listeners should have the same routinesavailable for English as native listeners. The dependentvariable in each experiment was reaction time to thetarget phoneme. Results showed that predicted accenteffects and effects of question-induced focus in Dutchparallel those in English. However, non-native listenersdemonstrated reduced efficiency in the mapping ofprosodic information to semantics. Possible explanationsfor this are discussed.

04–574 Allen, Heather W. (University ofPittsburgh) and Herron, Carol A.

mixed-methodology investigation of the

linguistic and affective outcomes of summer

study abroad. Foreign Language Annals (NewYork, USA), 36, 3 (2003), 370–385.

The authors begin by reporting on the limited studiesexisting on study abroad (SA) programs, which revealboth positive and negative effects on the learning oflanguages and cultures. The study reported in thisarticle targeted language anxiety, integrative motivation,and listening and speaking skills in a group of 25university students participating in a foreign languagesummer SA program in France. Several instrumentswere used to test the focus areas: Foreign LanguageClassroom Anxiety Scale, French Use Anxiety Scale,State Anxiety Questionnaire, Attitude/MotivationTest Battery, French Oral Proficiency Test, FrenchListening Proficiency Test, Demographic/LanguageContact Profile, and Study Abroad Interview Protocol.Quantitative data were collected prior to study abroad,during study abroad, and after study abroad, andqualitative data during study abroad only. Results showthat after SA, students were less anxious speaking Frenchboth in and out of the classroom, and they madesignificant improvements in oral and listening skills.However, their integrative motivation and attitudestowards learning French and French people remainedunchanged as a group, as was the case with a non-SAgroup also tested for these affective factors. The articleends with recommendations for further research and forbetter preparation in SA preprogram orientations.

04–575 Barcroft, Joe (Washington U., MO, USA;Email: [email protected]). Effects of

questions about word meaning during L2

Spanish lexical learning. The Modern LanguageJournal (Madison, WI, USA), 87, 4 (2003), 546–561.

This study looks at the effect of presenting questionsabout word meaning during an immediate lexicallearning task. English-speaking learners of Spanish asa second language (L2) attempted to learn 24 newSpanish words while viewing word-picture pairs. For12 of the words, they thought about specific questionsrelated to the meaning of each target word (e.g., Inwhat ways can this object be used?). For the other12 words, they were instructed only to do their bestto learn the target words. After the learning phase,the participants completed three recall tasks: (a) freerecall in Spanish, (b) free recall in English, and (c) cuedrecall in Spanish (when presented with pictures only).The results indicated significantly greater cued-recallscores in the no questions condition than in thequestions condition, a finding that provided evidencefor a potentially inhibitory effect of semantic elaborationduring L2 word learning. The study concludes byproposing areas of lexical learning where elaborationis appropriate. In addition, some implications aredrawn for researchers and developers of instructionalmaterials.

04–576 Boehlke, Olaf (Creighton U., USA; Email:[email protected]). A comparison of student

participation levels by group size and language

stages during chatroom and face-to-face

discussions in German. Calico Journal (Texas,USA), 21, 1 (2003), 67–87.

Synchronous computer-mediated communication(CMC) is real-time communication via a computernetwork. This study compares written Germandiscourse produced by 27 learners of German as aFL in a CMC environment by means of a chatroomwith the oral discourse produced by the same learnersin small face-to-face discussion groups. Two researchquestions are asked: i) How is the level of participationin communicative interactions distributed amongparticipants? ii) What kind of language does the learneruse in each mode? The level of participation wasmeasured by coding the data with communicationunits. The overall level of participation among groupswith five students was compared to groups with onlyfour. Finally, the language difficulty levels producedin both discussion modes was studied and discussedby applying a scale of language stages. Participationwas, in general, more evenly distributed amongchatroom groups and it was noted that groups withfour members profited most from the equalising effectof the chatroom.

04–577 Brandford, Verna and Wilson, Rebecca

(Institute of Education, U. of London). Using

PowerPoint to develop pupils’ oral skills in

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■ Language learningmodern foreign languages. Francophonie(London, UK), 28 (2003), 18–24.

The increased use of information and communicationtechnology (ICT) has changed the face of teachingand learning in all subjects including modern foreignlanguages (MFL). Whilst there is good practice in theuse of ICT in MFL, its role in raising attainmentand as a source for creativity is often underdevelopedor not fully exploited. This case study concerns itselfwith measuring the outcomes within French lessonsof pupils’ use of ICT, and PowerPoint in particular,through their production of extended utterances inthe target language as part of a presentation, ratherthan through traditional methods. The participants wereYear 8, Tear 9 and Year 10 in a girls’ high school in theUK. A questionnaire was designed and distributed tothe teachers and pupils at the end of the project aspart of the evaluation process. The authors of the studyconclude that the use of ICT can heighten teaching andlearning in MFL through its potential to not only allowpupils to manipulate and generate language for theirown purposes but also in other areas, such as: friendshipexchanges; data sharing; collaborative artefact creation;peer critiquing; and question asking.

04–578 Brouwer, Catherine E. (U. of SouthernDenmark, Denmark; Email: [email protected]). Word searches in NNS-NS

interaction: opportunities for language

learning? The Modern Language Journal(Madison, WI, USA), 87, 4 (2003), 534–545.

A substantial portion of second language acquisitionresearch focuses on interactional practices in whichnonnative speakers (NNSs) engage. From varioustheoretical viewpoints, it is assumed that certain types ofinteractional practices, specifically those in which parti-cipants focus on linguistic form, may promote languagelearning. The question of whether, and under whichconditions, such sequences can be seen as providingthe NNS with language learning opportunities, isconsidered in this article in a data-driven way, applyingconversation analysis (CA) as a method. The articleconsiders one specific type of interactional practice,“word search” sequences, and opportunities for lan-guage learning that they may provide for NNSs, on thebasis of naturally occurring interactions between nativespeakers of Danish and Dutch speakers of Danish. It isargued that in order to distinguish between “languagelearning opportunities” and other types of interactionalpractices, the researcher needs to analyze data in appro-priate detail.

04–579 Carr, Jo (Queensland U. of Technology,Australia; Email: [email protected]). Why boys into

languages won’t go: the problematic gender

agenda in languages education. Babel, (Adelaide,Australia), 37, 2 (2002), 4–9.

The relationship between boys and school-basedlanguage learning is a problematic one, visible in low

enrolment and retention figures in post-compulsorylanguage programmes. The author believes that thegirls–languages alliance has little to do with biologyand a lot to do with socialisation. She argues thatlanguage sits at the heart of gender socialisation. Thestudy reported here focuses on the alienation of boysfrom the schooling experience, particularly acute inrelation to language and literacy, and to the study ofother languages. To find out what boys themselvesare thinking, and discover their perceptions of theirrelationship with languages, recorded interviews wereconducted with approximately 100 boys in secondaryschools. Evidence of disaffection with language learningis presented and discussed. It was found that differentcurriculum areas were considered ‘gendered’, and thatlanguages were girls’ subjects, inconsistent with theboys’ perceptions of masculine identity. The authorconcludes that ‘the problem with the boys’ involvesa complex account of gendered subjectivities, but isoptimistic that constructs such as masculinity are notstable and are open to change.

04–580 Chalhoub-Deville, Micheline (U. ofIowa, USA; Email: [email protected]).Second language interaction: current

perspectives and future trends. Language Testing(London, UK), 20, 4 (2003), 369–383.

While theoretical arguments and empirical evidencehave ascertained the multicomponentiality of the L2construct, consensus is absent regarding the nature ofthese components and the way in which they interact.The present paper considers the orientation of theresearch needed to help explore new ideas about the na-ture of L2 interaction. The starting point for thesearguments is a consideration of the knowledge basefrom the larger applied linguistics community as well asfrom related fields, such as educational psychology. Theauthor provides an alternative to Bachman’s model ofcommunicative language ability, arguing that the latterincorporates interaction from an individual-focusedcognitive perspective, while the alternative viewpointsees individual ability and contextual facets interactingin ways that change them both. While some contextsactivate stable ability features, others produce morevariable learner performance. The focus of both theoryformulation and empirical research should be on howto account for inconsistent performance in particularcontexts from a social interactional perspective.

04–581 Chan, Victoria, Spratt, Mary and

Humphreys, Gillian (Hong Kong Polytechnic U.,Hong Kong). Autonomous language learning:

Hong Kong tertiary students’ attitudes and

behaviours. Evaluation and Research in Education(Clevedon, UK), 16, 1 (2002), 1–16.

This paper reports on a large-scale study of learnerautonomy conducted with a group of tertiary studentsat the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in HongKong. The study investigates students’ views of their

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Language learning ■responsibilities and decision-making abilities in learningEnglish, their motivation level and the actual languagelearning activities they undertake inside and outside theclassroom, with a view to gauging their readiness forautonomous learning. The paper presents the studentprofile generated from the study. The paper concludeswith a discussion of the pedagogical implications ofthe findings for the tertiary level in Hong Kong.The researchers point to the importance of promotinglearner autonomy through adapting curriculum designand classroom practice to the constraining factors (heavyreliance on the teacher, the heavy workload, etc.) ofAsian students’ learning realities.

04–582 Dam Jensen, Eva and Vinther, Thora

(University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Email:[email protected].). Exact repetition as input

enhancement in second language acquisition.Language Learning (University of Michigan, USA),53, 3 (2003), 373–428.

This article reports on two experiments where inputenhancement was used to support learners’ selectionof focus in second language listening material. Eighty-four upper intermediate learners of Spanish took partin different listening programs where input consistedof video recordings of quasi-spontaneous dialoguesbetween native speakers. Learners were tested for theeffects of exact repetition and speech rate reductionon comprehension, acquisition of decoding strategiesand linguistic features. Each of three groups listenedto each utterance of the dialogue three times, indifferent speed combinations: fast-slow-fast, fast-slow-slow, fast-fast-fast, respectively. A fourth group servedas a baseline and received no treatment. Comparisonsof pretest and posttest scores showed significant effectsfor all three parameters (comprehension, phonologicaldecoding ability, grammatical accuracy) although nodifference with regard to effect could be establishedbetween treatment conditions (F-S-F, F-S-S, F-F-F). Itis concluded that exact repetition can provide learnerswith more opportunity not only to decode meaning,but also to direct their attention to formal featureswithin the input language. Thus, exact repetition hasthe potential to improve language acquisition.

04–583 De Carlo, Maddalena (Universite deCassino, Italy). Affectivite et acquisition du

langage. [Affectivity and Language Acquisition.]Etudes de linguistique appliquee (Paris, France), 13,1 (2003), 275–290.

Psychoanalysis research has a lot to offer to theorieson language acquisition and on linguistic issues ingeneral. This article examines the question of meaningconstruction, using psychoanalysis theories in bothmother tongue acquisition and language emergence as astarting point. On the basis of linguistic, psychoanalyticand pedagogic theories, the author first describeschildren’s steps in language acquisition, and moves onto explain how children communicate with adults in

their environment. Here, the interaction between achild and his/her mother is a turning point in thelearning process, since the mother is seen as a mirror onwhich the child can try his/her incomplete linguisticexpressions, and have proper feedback on them. In thesecond part of her article, the author examines someof Daniel N. Stern’s theories on Infant Research. Sternhas investigated mother-infant interaction, and foundthat from birth, infants can not only satisfy their basicneeds, but also truly interact with adults around them.In conclusion, De Carlo argues that the affective featureis the most important one in any communication orlearning process.

04–584 Derwing, Tracey M. (Alberta U., Canada)and Rossiter, Marian J. The effects of

pronunciation instruction on the accuracy,

fluency and complexity of L2 accented speech.Applied Language Learning (Monterey, CA, USA),13, 1 (2003), 1–18.

This is a study assessing changes in 48 non-nativespeakers’ (NNSs’) pronunciation over a period of12 weeks according to the type of instructionthey received – Global (primarily prosodic features),Segmental (focus on consonants and vowels), No Spe-cific Pronunciation instruction. Expert judges assessedspeech samples from Time 1 and 12 weeks later at Time2 for accentedness, comprehensibility and fluency. Inaddition, the judges classified errors as likely to interferewith comprehensibility, as merely bothersome, or asmerely salient errors. They also provided an overallimpression of the speech samples. The only groupthat was judged to have improved significantly hadreceived Global instruction. It is argued that althoughthe Segmental group demonstrated fewer phonologicalerrors at Time 2, they paid so much attention to phono-logical accuracy that they were unable to demonstrateimprovement in other areas. The Global group’s pro-ductions were perceived to have improved, apparentlyat little cost to attentional resources required for non-prosodic aspects of speech. The study suggests, alongwith other implications, that pronunciation instruc-tion should include a stronger emphasis on prosody.

04–585 Dykstra-Pruim, Pennylyn (CalvinCollege, MI, USA). L2 acquisition of German

plurals: how students form them and textbooks

teach them. Die Unterrichtspraxis (Cherry Hill, NJ,USA), 36, 1 (2003), 43–55.

German pluralization appears to the beginning second-language (L2) learner to be quite unsystematic. Yet,despite this, significant evidence exists indicating thatGerman pluralization is systematic. This study concernsitself with the L2 studies, in particular throughreplicating and extending the Phillips-Bouma study(1980), that shed light on how students of Germanas a second language process pluralization in German.The study was motivated by the following questions:1. Is there improvement in NNS’s understanding of

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■ Language learningGerman pluralization as the level of German studyadvances?; 2. How do NNS German learners comparewith NS children and adults in their assignment ofplural markers?; 3. What tendencies can be observedin NNS German learner production of plural forms;4. How can the teaching on German plurals in anacademic setting be improved? The data was collectedfrom 120 German students at 5 different levels within a4-year liberal arts college. The study used the Phillips-Bouma list of 30 nonce words (possible but not actualwords). The study concludes with some pedagogicalimplications and suggestions for future research.

04–586 Eckman, Fred (University of Wisconsin,USA; Email: [email protected]), Elreyes,

Abdullah and Iverson, Gregory. Some principles

of second language phonology. SecondLanguage Research (London, UK), 19, 3 (2003),169–208.

This article seeks to build an understanding ofseveral well-known yet poorly comprehended problemsrelating to phonemic contrasts in the learning of L2pronunciation. The authors identify three interestinglearning situations; (a) the native language has neitherof two sounds which contrast in the target language;(b) the native language includes just one of the twosounds which contrast in the target language; (c) thenative language has both sounds in question but showsno contrast between them, i.e. a phoneme of the nativelanguage has two (or more) allophones that categorize asseparate phonemes in the target language. Nine Spanishand seven Korean ESL learners were tested to determinewhether their interlanguage exhibited relevant contrastsin both derived and basic environments. Participantswho lacked relevant contrasts were entered into aninstructional study to determine whether, once trainedon contrasts within a basic or derived environmentonly, they would extend the contrasts to the otherenvironment. Results revealed that target languagecontrasts between native language allophones areincorporated into interlanguages progressively. Theauthors argue that L2 phonology is a highly abstractenterprise parallel to the phonologies of primarylanguages, rather than – as has been assumed – a mereimitation of the target language’s pronunciations.

04–587 Egbert, Joy (Washington State U., USA;Email: [email protected]). A study of flow theory

in the foreign language classroom. The ModernLanguage Journal (Madison, WI, USA), 87, 4(2003), 499–518.

This article focuses on the relationship between flowexperiences and language learning. Flow Theorysuggests that flow experiences (characterized by abalance between challenge and skills and by a person’sinterest, control, and focused attention during a task)can lead to optimal learning. This theory has not yetbeen tested in the area of foreign or second languagelearning. The purpose of the present study is twofold:

first, to establish the foundation for a research streamaddressing flow in language learning, and second, toinvestigate whether flow exists in foreign language(FL) classrooms. Findings suggest that flow does existin the FL classroom and that Flow Theory offers aninteresting and useful framework for conceptualizingand evaluating language learning activities. Possible areasof investigation for future research are mentioned.

04–588 Ehrman, Madeline (Foreign ServiceInstitute, US Dept of State, Washington DC, USA;Email: [email protected]) and Leaver, Betty Lou.

Cognitive styles in the service of language

learning. System, 31, 3 (2003), (Oxford), 393–415.

This article introduces the Ehrman-Leaver (E&L)cognitive styles construct and describes its applicationin intensive language training in the Foreign ServiceInstitute (FSI) language learning consultation service.In the E&L model, a superordinate construct, synopsis-ectasis, replaces the traditional ‘global-analytic’ dis-tinction and relates to the degree of conscious controlof learning desired or needed. The ten E&L subscalesare overviewed and the literature of each brieflyreviewed: (1) field independent and field sensitive –used to establish four possible learner types; (2) random(non-linear) – sequential (linear), for structuring;(3) global – particular, for processing; (4) inductive –deductive; (5) synthetic – analytic; (6) analogue – digital;(7) concrete – abstract; (8) levelling – sharpening;(9) impulsive – reflective. The article describes theFSI institutional context using the E&L model andquestionnaire. The E&L Questionnaire uses self-reported behaviour to determine cognitive stylepreferences, and is used in conjunction with otherinstruments. Trained Learning Consultants call students’attention to surface, achievement and deep strategies.The article concludes by illustrating the use of the E&L Construct with reference to two learners. Neither isa clear-cut example of synoptic or ectenic, but the ten-scale profile presents information in a way that is usefulfor the student.

04–589 Felser, Claudia (U. of Essex, UK; Email:[email protected]), Roberts, Leah, Gross,

Rebecca and Marinis, Theodore. The processing

of ambiguous sentences by first and second

language learners of English. AppliedPsycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 24, 3 (2003),453–490.

This article reports research into adult English secondlanguage (L2) learners’ resolution of relative clauseattachment ambiguities. The empirical questions to beanswered focused on the sentence processing strategiesused, the transfer of processing strategies from L1,and the extent of L2 learners’ use and integrationof phrase-structure and lexical-semantic informationduring processing. Two groups of advanced L2 learn-ers, with Greek or German as their L1, participatedin a set of tasks, as follows: first with German L1

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Language learning ■participants: (1) a questionnaire requiring interpreta-tions of 40 sentences (20 experimental, and 20 unambi-guous fillers); (2) sentences read on-line, presentedsegmentally, using a moving window technique, toindicate reaction times; then, with Greek L1 parti-cipants: (3) a grammaticality judgement test includingconstructions considered particularly difficult for GreekL1 learners of English and a questionnaire as in (1); (4)as experiment (2). The results indicated that L2 learnersdo not process ambiguous sentences is the same way asadult native speakers (NSs) of English do. Depending ontheir L1, learners use either (as in Greek and German)the principle of predicate proximity (NP1) or (as in thecase of English) the principle of recency (termed NP2).However, where prepositions such as with are used,NP2 disambiguation seems to be universally preferred.Performance was also compared to that of 6- and 7-year old English speakers, whose interpretations werenot affected by the type of preposition used.

04–590 Gass, Susan (Michigan State University,USA; Email: [email protected]) and Svetics, Ildiko.

Differential effects of attention. LanguageLearning (Michigan, USA), 53, 3 (2003), 497–545.

This paper reports on a study of the differentialeffects of attention on different aspects of language,and how this differential effect interacts with increasedlinguistic knowledge (i.e., proficiency). Thirty-fourEnglish speakers enrolled in Italian 1st-, 2nd-, and3rd-year foreign language courses in the United Stateswere placed into one of two conditions, (with focusedattention, and without focused attention), for eachof three linguistic areas (syntax, morphosyntax andlexicon). They were exposed to example and practicesentences with levels of attention manipulated throughdifferent instructions and tasks. It was predicted thatfocused attention would have the greatest effect on thelexicon and the least on syntax. The results showed theopposite, suggesting that focused attention can facilitatelearning in areas that are highly complex and abstract.For the non-focused attention condition, the predictedresults were borne out. With regard to proficiency,focused attention was found to have a diminishingeffect, with the greatest effect in early periods oflearning and the least in the latter stages. From theseresults, the authors conclude that learning can take placewith or without focused attention and may be facilitatedby either externally or internally driven attention.

04–591 Griffiths, Carol (Auckland Institute ofStudies, Auckland, New Zealand; Email: [email protected]). Patterns of language learning strategy

use. System, (Oxford, UK), 31, 3 (2003), 367–383.

This paper reports the first phase of an on-going studyof language learning strategy use by 348 learners ofmixed nationality (Asian and European), carried outat a language school in Auckland, New Zealand. Aversion of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL) questionnaire for speakers of other languages

learning English was used to elicit strategies used.The author found a significant relationship betweenstrategy use and course level, with further significantdifferences in strategy use and course level according tonationality. 15 strategies used very frequently, especiallyat advanced levels, and 4 strategies that the Europeanstudents reported using frequently were combined tomake a list of ‘Plus’ strategies. These were then dividedinto eight categories: strategies relating to interactionwith others, to vocabulary, to reading, to toleranceof ambiguity, to language systems, to management offeelings, to the management of learning, and to theutilisation of available resources. Strategies typical oflower level students were found to give greater emphasisto memorisation and, where management of feelingswas reported, show attempts to control study patterns inan isolated fashion. A longitudinal study (to be reportedelsewhere) reveals a statistically significant relationshipbetween reported language learning strategy use andprogress in language learning.

04–592 Hertel, Tammy J. (Department of WorldLanguages and Cultures, Juniata College, USA;Email: [email protected]) Lexical and discourse

factors in the second language acquisition of

Spanish word order. Second Language Research(London, England), 19, 4 (2003), 273–304.

English word order is a fairly fixed subject-verb orderwhereas Spanish allows null subjects and has freerword order. Word order in Spanish is determined bylexical verb class and information structure; howeverthese aspects are rarely taught in the second language(L2) classroom. This paper begins by describingsecond language acquisition of Spanish word order, theimportance of focus and prosody, and studies of thedifficulties English speakers have in learning Spanish.The study involved English-speaking learners of Spanishin four groups of differing levels and one Spanish nativespeaker (NS) control group. All participants completed acontextualised written task involving the manipulationof information structure. This was designed to producethe target structures of unaccusative and unergativeverbs. The NS group produced significantly more verbsubject sentences with unaccusative verbs than withunergative verbs in answer to global questions. Only theadvanced learner group demonstrated a similar pattern,and showed some tendency towards overgeneralisationof inversion. The writer concludes that the studyprovides evidence that English-speaking L2 learnersof Spanish follow a developmental path that can beaccounted for by a lexical view of parametric change.

04–593 Hertel, Tammy J. (Juniata College).Using an e-mail exchange to promote cultural

learning. Foreign Language Annals (New York,USA), 36, 3 (2003), 386–396.

In this article, the author reports on an action researchproject which focuses on the cultural attitudes of

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■ Language learningstudents in a Spanish I class both before and afteran e-mail exchange program. Data was collectedfrom 13 students, and included a questionnaire atthe beginning on student age, background, Spanishlanguage experience, and experiences with Mexicanculture. The e-mail exchange was set up withan intermediate-level English writing class inMexico, through the Intercultural E-mail ClassroomConnections ListServ; 13 pairs were created. Contentof the messages was open-ended, and the primarylanguage English. The U.S. students were also assignedtwo papers in which they were to analyze and reflect onwhat they learned about Mexican culture through theexchange, by rereading hard copies of all messages sentand received, which they submitted with the papers.Data analyzed included the e-mail exchanges, thepapers, and pre- and post-exchange surveys on attitudestowards Mexican and U.S. cultures and the exchangeitself. Results show positive reactions to the exchangeon the part of the students, who also indicated thattheir attitudes towards and perceptions about Mexicanculture were influenced by the experience. The authorends with some suggestions for implementing electronicexchanges.

04–594 Hu, Chieh-Fang (Taipei MunicipalTeachers College, Taiwan; Email: [email protected]). Phonological memory,

phonological awareness and foreign language

word learning. Language Learning (University ofMichigan, USA), 53, 3 (2003), 429–462.

This article examines the role of phonological memoryand phonological awareness in foreign language (FL)word learning. Measures of phonological memoryand phonological awareness were administered to 58Chinese-speaking 4-year-olds 4 times (T1 to T4) across2 years. FL (English) word learning was assessed at T3,and children’s ability to relearn the words was assessed atT4. Measures indicated that phonological memory wasrelated to FL word learning at T3, whereas phonologicalawareness was not. Phonological awareness, however,emerged as a significant predictor at T4, even afterallowing for FL word learning at T3 and phonologicalmemory. The results of the research suggest thatphonological memory and phonological awareness maysupport FL word learning, but phonological awarenessmay play a specific role when the words are relearned.The article concludes that phonological awarenesstraining could be incorporated into classroom activitiesto facilitate pronunciation and word-learning in youngFL learners.

04–595 Izumi, Shinichi (Sophia University,Japan; Email: [email protected]). Processing

difficulty in comprehension and production of

relative clauses by learners of English as a

second language. Language Learning (Michigan,USA), 53, 2 (2003), 285–323.

This article examines a research study to test thepredictions of three major hypotheses of relative

clause acquisition in second language acquisition:Keenan and Comrie’s (1977) Noun Phrase AccessibilityHierarchy (NPAH), Kuno’s (1974) Perceptual DifficultyHypothesis (PDH), and Hamilton’s (1994) SO Hier-archy Hypothesis (SOHH). These hypotheses are basedon different rationales and make different predictionson the difficulty order of different relative clausesentence types. Data for analysis was taken from anearlier study (Izumi, 2000, 2002) in which 61 learnersof English as a second language were administered threedifferent elicitation tasks to test both comprehension andproduction ability in regard to relative clause acquisition.Results of the present study found mixed support forthe NPAH and the SOHH and full support for the PDHand generally suggest a complementary rather thancontradictory relationship exists between the NPAHand the PDH. The author concludes that differencesobserved in different tasks point to the importance ofresearchers examining learners’ processing problems inmultiple tasks and in different modalities.

04–596 Jones, Linda, J. (U. of Arkansas, USA;Email: [email protected]). Supporting listening

comprehension and vocabulary acquisition with

multimedia annotation: the students’ voice.Calico Journal (San Marcos Tex. USA), 21, 1 (2003),41–65.

Based on a generative theory of multimedia learning,this study investigates under what conditions multi-media annotations can support listening comprehensionin an L2. Specifically, students’ thoughts and opinionsare described concerning how verbal and visualannotations in a multimedia environment can assist thecomprehension of, and acquisition of new vocabularyfrom, an aural passage. Participants were randomlyassigned to one of four listening treatments and20 students selected for interview to gain a clearerunderstanding of the effects of different media typeson students’ comprehension and vocabulary acquisition.Results showed that students remembered and recalledtext best when they had selected both verbal andvisual annotations while listening. Qualitative evidenceis provided for a generative theory of multimedialearning that suggests the availability and choice ofverbal and visual annotations enhances students’ abilitiesto comprehend the material presented and acquirevocabulary.

04–597 Jung, Euen Hyuk (Sarah) (Yonsei U.,South Korea; Email: [email protected]). The

role of discourse signaling cues in second

language listening comprehension. The ModernLanguage Journal (Madison, WI, USA), 87, 4(2003), 562–577.

In contrast to the extensive research on reading,few studies have been conducted to investigate therole of discourse signaling cues in second language(L2) listening. Even the few existing studies provideinconsistent support for the beneficial effects of

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Language learning ■discourse signaling cues on L2 listening comprehension.Most of these studies also fail to show how thesecues affect listeners’ comprehension of different levelsof information in the text. The current studyexamined the effects of discourse signaling cues onL2 learners’ listening comprehension of high- andlow-level information in academic lectures. The studyinvolved 80 Korean learners of English as a ForeignLanguage. Of the 80 learners, half listened to thelecture with discourse signaling cues (signaled group),and the other half listened to the lecture withoutsuch cues (non-signaled group). Half the learners ineach group performed summary tasks; the other halfperformed recall tasks. Compared to the non-signaledgroup, the signaled group recalled significantly morehigh- as well as low-level information from the lecturein an accurate manner. The findings showed thatdiscourse-signaling cues play an important role in L2listening comprehension. On the basis of the findingsrecommendations for future research are made.

04–598 Knutson, Sonja (Memorial U.,Newfoundland, Canada). Experiential learning in

second-language classrooms. TESL CanadaJournal (Burnaby, B.C., Canada), 20, 2 (2003),53–64.

This article is a discussion of some of the issuessurrounding experiential learning in the second-language classroom. Experiential learning is defined bythe inclusion of phases of reflection designed to helpthe learner relate a current learning experience to pastand future experience. The author seeks to establisha theoretical foundation for incorporating experientialphases into the second-language classroom by exploringpast methods of teaching English as a second language,as well as looking at research in the field of second-language acquisition in the light of experientialmethodology. The implications of experiential learningfor second-language acquisition, in particular the aspectsof motivation and investment, are explored, and somepitfalls of the experiential curriculum and their possiblesolutions are discussed. Finally, some possible projectsadaptable to experiential methods are outlined, and areasneeding further research, especially in the area of studentvoice and empowerment, are proposed.

04–599 Littlemore, Jeannette (U. ofBirmingham, UK). The communicative

effectiveness of different types of

communication strategy. System, (Oxford, UK),31, 3 (2003), 331–347

This article reports a study assessing the communicativeeffectiveness of a range of compensation strategies bylearners whose cognitive styles are labelled (followingEhrman and Leaver 2002, 2003) as synoptic and ectenic.The participants, 82 French-speaking, university-levellearners of English, seated in a language laboratory,were asked to record test items so that an Englishspeaker would be able to identify the objects. The

recordings were transcribed and classified to give arecord of the number of times a strategy was usedfor each item and by each participant. Communicativeeffectiveness, in its three aspects, was assessed on a bandscale, according to ease of comprehension, stylishness,and demonstration of linguistic proficiency, by twonative speaker judges. Compensation strategies wereclassified (following Poulisse’s (1993) taxonomy) in threestrategy families: “substitution” (6 strategies, 4 of whichwere favoured by synoptic learners), “substitution plus”(predicted as contributing to stylishness and proficiencyratings, rather than ease of comprehension) and“reconceptualization” (favoured by ectenic learners).Strategies in the reconceptualization category werefound to relate significantly to all three measures.Of these, componential analysis appeared the mosteffective, followed by substitution. It is pointed outthat the communicative effectiveness of the favouredstrategies may not be universal, but culturally specific.

04–600 McCollum, Daniel L. (Pennsylvania StateU., USA). Utilizing non-cognitive predictors of

foreign language achievement. Applied LanguageLearning (Monterey, CA, USA), 13, 1 (2003), 19–32.

The purpose of the research presented here was toinvestigate the influence of two non-cognitive factorsin foreign language achievement: self-efficacy andlearning-goal orientation. A scale was constructed, theMeasure of Foreign Language Achievement Potential(MOFLAP), to measure these constructs; it washypothesised that they would be individually predictiveof foreign language achievement and maximallypredictive when combined. Data were obtained for 128undergraduate students of German at Pennsylvania StateUniversity. These consisted firstly of their responses toeighteen items (reproduced in Appendix) worded toassess the level of presence of each construct (usinga Likert scale), and secondly of their final coursegrades. The MOFLAP proved to be highly reliable, andevidence of the instrument’s construct, discriminant,and predictive validity was found, with self-efficacybeing the superior predictor. The author believes thepsychometric properties of the MOFLAP warrant itsuse by both educators and researchers.

04–601 Morris, Frank (University of Miami, USA;Email: [email protected].) and Tarone, Elaine.

Impact of classroom dynamics on the

effectiveness of recasts in second language

acquisition. Language Learning (University ofMichigan, USA), 53, 2 (2003), 325–368.

This paper discusses how the social dynamics of thelanguage classroom may in some cases dramatically alterthe way the cognitive processes of attention, or noticing,are deployed in cooperative learning activities in whichlearners correct each other’s errors using recasts. Tenforeign language learners of Spanish were asked to formpairs then given a jigsaw task to complete. The task wasdesigned to promote attention to meaning and form

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■ Language learningwithin fifteen specific contexts. Learner collaborationwas recorded, transcribed and coded. Stimulated recallsessions were conducted to elicit learners’ perceptions ofpeer feedback during the jigsaw task. The results of thestudy revealed that interpersonal conflict arose in the in-teractions of three dyads of learners engaged in thetask and that negative feelings about their conversationpartners seemed to have caused some learners tointerpret recasts not as helpful corrective feedback, butas criticism and even mockery. This in turn appeared toaffect acquisition. The paper concludes by examiningthe impact the social context of the classroom can havein the way peer corrective feedback is perceived bylearners, and offers a number of ideas for maximizingthe efficacy of pair work in the L2 classroom.

04–602 Ntirampeba, Pascal (Universite deMontreal, Quebec, Canada). La progression en

didactique du texte argumentatif ecrit.[Progressive approach to written argumentativetext.] Revue Canadienne de LinguistiqueAppliquee, 6, 2 (2003), 159–169.

In Quebec, Canada, written argumentative textsconstitute an important part of the French as mothertongue program in high schools. Moreover, thefinal French exam at the college level is a writtenargumentative text. This article deals with teaching suchtext type. Following an overview of the argumentativetext as an object of study and a discussion of theneed for a progressive approach to teaching andlearning argumentative texts, the article illustrates theircomplexity and presents a synthesis of psycholinguisticresearch which might facilitate students’ learning,in particular object construction, supporting ideas,interlocution and metacognitive aspects. It seems thatthe full mastery of argumentation can be achievedat approximately 16–17 years old, which in Quebec,corresponds to the final year in high school. Inconclusion, the author states that a large-scale studywould be needed to confirm the linguistic and age-related findings of her research.

04–603 Parkinson, Brian, Benson, Cathy and

Jenkins, Michael (U. of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK).Learner diary research with ‘Cambridge’

examination candidates. Edinburgh WorkingPapers in Applied Linguistics (Edinburgh, Scotland,UK), 12 (2003), 45–63.

This article reports part of a research project thatinvestigated the experience of students preparing forCambridge examinations, as revealed through theirdiaries and through meetings between the students andresearchers. The data consist of the diaries of threelearners (two Japanese and one Swiss), audio-tapes ofthe meetings, and ‘coding sheets’ containing summariesand classification of everything said at the meetings.The aim of the research project was to illuminate thebehaviour of students preparing for examinations, inorder to help these and future students, and to assist

the researchers in their teaching and advice to students.This account focuses on the diaries. The authors arecritical of previous learner diary research, in terms ofdesign, methodology, and validity. They report in detailon the diary entries of their students, which exhibitperceptive analysis by the students of their learning.The authors conclude that the terms ‘strategy’ and‘anxiety’, although valid as constructs, fail to do justiceto the complexity of choices made by the learnersand the variety of cognitive, affective, and interpersonaldemands made on them as individuals. The inadequacyof much advice given to learners is also revealed. Theauthors also raise the issue of the ‘truth’ of the diaries,and conclude that they present ‘a’ truth rather than ‘the’truth.

04–604 Perez, Luisa, C. (Emporia State U., USA;Email: [email protected]). Foreign language

productivity in synchronous versus

asynchronous computer-mediated

communication. Calico Journal (Texas, USA), 21, 1(2003), 89–104.

This study aims to observe the effects of dialoguejournaling through email (asynchronous) on newlanguage produced by learners of Spanish as anL2 compared with the new language produced bythese learners during chatroom sessions (synchronous),thereby establishing which of the two might be moreeffective in increasing foreign language productivity.24 subjects studying first-year Spanish emailed aweekly dialogue journal to their instructor, attendedconventional classes, and participated in computer-mediated communication (CMC). Findings show nosignificant differences between the two CMC modes.It is concluded that both techniques had benefits forvocabulary enrichment and productivity and that bothtools enhanced the language acquisition process.

04–605 Pulido, Diana (Washington StateUniversity, USA; Email: [email protected].).Modeling the role of second language

proficiency and topic familiarity in second

language incidental vocabulary acquisition

through reading. Language Learning (University ofMichigan, USA), 53, 2 (2003), 233–284.

The study reported here examined the impact of topicfamiliarity, second language (L2) reading proficiency,and L2 passage sight vocabulary on incidentalvocabulary acquisition. Independent variables included(a) a topic familiarity questionnaire, (b) the AdultBasic Learning Examination. Spanish Battery (Karlsen &Gardner, 1990), and (c) a passage sight vocabulary test.A repeated-measures design was used with a cross-sectional sample. Ninety-nine adult learners of Spanishwere asked to read narratives (two more and two lessfamiliar) containing nonsense words. Two and twenty-eight days after reading, two gain measures were ad-ministered: (a) translation production and (b) translationrecognition. Analyses revealed robust effects of reading

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Language learning ■proficiency, differential effects of topic familiarity,and isolated effects of passage sight vocabulary onvocabulary gain and retention of new words. The articleconcludes with pedagogical implications for promotingvocabulary growth in the classroom and suggestions forfurther research in formulating models of L2 incidentalvocabulary acquisition through reading.

04–606 Sasaki, Yoshinori (Ochanomizu U.,Japan) and Hayakawa, Harumi. Does a quiz

facilitate or spoil language learning?

Instructional effects of lesson review quizzes.Applied Language Learning (Monterey, CA, USA),13, 1 (2003), 33–56.

The two studies reported here investigated whetherlesson review quizzes result in positive effects on sub-sequent academic performance, or whether the effectsare non-existent or negative. The learners studied wereuniversity students of Japanese at the University of NewSouth Wales, Australia. The first study, using a question-naire, showed that the majority of the students believedin the positive effects on learning when quizzes formpart of the assessment programme, and that their attitudeto quizzes remained longitudinally stable across academ-ic terms. A second study tested this expectation againstactual performance. It was hypothesised that studentswho regularly take assessable lesson review quizzeswould outperform those who do not. The procedureis described, and the results of this study are presentedand discussed at length. The authors believe the resultshighlight the positive effects of quizzes, and find little ifany evidence to demonstrate negative side effects.

04–607 Seus-Walker, Katia (IUT-Universite deToulouse III, France). Pour developper

l’autonomie des apprenants. [Developing learnerautonomy.] Les Cahiers de l’APLIUT , XXII, 2 (2003),43–58.

With the growth of technology in language teaching,it becomes important to help students developlearning strategies in semi-autonomous situations. Thisarticle illustrates a model of guided autonomy, wherecontextual constraints exist and where the learner’sprofiles must be particularly taken into account. Theauthor posits a difference between autonomous learningand learning to be autonomous, though the twoprocesses are frequently associated. The article presentsthe pedagogy of putting into play progressively moredifficult tasks before describing the various areas inwhich the learner must manage his own learning.For instance, in a semi-autonomous context, thestudent can evaluate when s/he needs the assistanceof a teacher, without being put in an uncomfortableoutgroup situation. Next the author discusses problemsthat have been observed when putting this methodinto practice. Finally, new directions are proposed,which might bring complementary support to teachingin a semi-autonomous context, thereby guaranteeinggreater efficiency. In an appendix, the author presents

the set of instructions given to the students when theyare working alone on their exercises.

04–608 Sparks, Richard L. (College of Mount St.Joseph, Cincinnati, Ohio) Philips, Lois and

Javorsky, James. College students classified as

having learning disabilities and attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder and the foreign language

requirement. Foreign Language Annals (New York,USA), 36, 3 (2003), 325–337.

This study compares four college student groups:1) students classified as LD (learning disabled) whopetitioned for and were permitted to substitute requiredcollege FL (foreign language) courses 2) studentsclassified as both LD and ADHD (attention deficithyperactivity disorder) who petitioned for and werepermitted to substitute required FL courses, 3) studentsclassified as LD who had fulfilled the requirementby passing their FL courses, and 4) students classifiedas both LD and ADHD who had also fulfilled therequirement by passing FL courses. The authors carriedout two studies; one compared petition LD studentswith petition LD/ADHD students, and the othercompared petition and non-petition students. Theresults of the first study show no significant differencesbetween the two petition groups in cognitive ability(IQ), most native language skills, FL aptitude, scholasticaptitude, graduating grade point average (GPA) andFL GPA. The results of the second study showedno significant demographic differences between thepetition and non-petition students, while the non-petition students scored higher on four out of sixcognitive achievement tests. The authors suggest thatLD/ADHD students may not experience more severelearning problems than LD students, and that theyshould be encouraged to enroll in FL courses.

04–609 Stotz, Daniel and Meuter, Tessa

(Zurcher Hochschule Winterthur, Switzerland;Email: [email protected]). Embedded English:

integrating content and language learning in a

Swiss primary school project. Bulletin suisse delinguistique appliquee (Neuchatel, Switzerland), 77

(2003), 83–101.

This paper reports on the experimental introductionof English into the primary school in the Cantonof Zurich, Switzerland, where it was used as thelanguage of instruction, not as a separate subject inthe curriculum; initially referred to as an embeddingapproach, it is now known as Content and LanguageIntegrated Learning (CLIL). The wider educationalcontext in multilingual Switzerland is briefly described.A two-year evaluation study (two periods of classroomobservation and two tests) focused on classroominteraction, learning opportunities, and the transitionfrom receptive to productive linguistic abilities. Adiscussion of the lessons learned from the projectinclude the conclusion that there was a discrepancybetween ambition and practice, and that sights need

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■ Language learningto be set lower for primary school CLIL. Theinsights gained from the Zurich project reflect theexperiences from other CLIL projects in Europe. Forthe future, the authors recommend focusing on threekey characteristics: degree of exposure to the language;subject fields and content-language ratio; and the levelof preparedness of teachers in terms of their languagecompetence, as this constrains or opens up the rangeof discourse types available to learners. The paperconcludes with a discussion of the socio-economicadvantages (‘added value’) of CLIL.

04–610 Takeuchi, Osamu (Kansai U., Osaka,Japan; Email: [email protected]). What

can we learn from good foreign language

learners? A qualitative study in the Japanese

foreign language context. System, (Oxford, UK),31, 3 (2003), 385–392.

This article discusses a qualitative study of reportedstrategy use by foreign language (FL) learners in theJapanese context. 67 books on ‘how I learnt a foreignlanguage’, written in Japanese and published in Japan,and describing the learning of various FLs including(nearly 70%) English, were analysed. Descriptions oflearning strategies, and the stage of their use, wereunderlined and categorised. The strategies used by theseGood Language Learners (GLLs) were categorised as(1) Metacognitive and (2) Strategies in specific skill areas(listening, reading, speaking, vocabulary, pronunciation,writing, grammar). The GLLs’ efforts to find maximumopportunity for practice and to immerse themselvesin the FL was associated with an intermediate stageof learning. The strategies in used specific skill areasshowed a strong emphasis on accuracy: memorisation,practice, imitation, use of correction, and employingconscious knowledge of grammar. The author makesa distinction between common strategies and contextspecific (e.g. in FL context) strategies, and highlights thefact that some strategies seem to be closely associatedwith certain stage of learning.

04–611 Vandergrift, Larry (University of Ottawa,Canada; Email: [email protected]).Orchestrating strategy use: toward a model of

the skilled second language listener. LanguageLearning (University of Michigan, USA), 53, 3(2003), 463–496.

This article reports on an investigation of listeningstrategy applications by 36 junior high school studentslearning French. The investigation examines the typesof strategies used and the differences in strategy usebetween more skilled and less skilled listeners. Studentswere classified into respective groups according to theresults of a listening comprehension test. Think-alouddata were then collected from the two groups as studentslistened to authentic texts in French. The think-aloud data were coded and analyzed both quantitativelyand qualitatively. Significant differences were foundbetween more skilled and less skilled listeners in

the use of metacognitive strategies as well as instrategies for comprehension monitoring, questioningfor elaboration, and translation. These differences werereinforced by a qualitative analysis of representativethink-aloud protocols. The article concludes with adiscussion of an emerging model of the skilled listener.It offers a number of pedagogic suggestions for teachersto help students develop listening skills during classroomlistening activities.

04–612 Vann, Roberta J. (Iowa State U., USA)and Fairbairn, Shelley B. Linking our worlds: a

collaborative academic literacy project. TESOLJournal (Alexandria, VA, USA), 12, 3 (2003), 11–16.

For students of English for speakers of other languages(ESOL), cognitive/academic language proficiency (thelanguage of decontextualised academic situations)typically lags behind that of basic interpersonal andcommunicative skills. This can result not only in lowacademic achievement but also in low self-confidenceand motivation, and little understanding of highereducation opportunities. This paper describes a projectdesigned to enhance academic literacy through socialinteraction, based on the work of Bakhtin and Vygotsky,in particular the latter’s notion of the ‘zone of proximaldevelopment’, or ‘scaffolding’. A group of ESOLstudents from Bosnia and Mexico, at middle schoolin the Midwestern United States, and a group offuture ESOL teachers, shared their respective learningexperiences. The six-week project, during which thestudents learned how to make formal presentations anduse computer technology, culminated in a day spenton the university campus with the trainee teachers. Thestudents’ self-confidence was improved, and they gainedvaluable knowledge of university life.

04–613 Verspoor, Marjolijn and Lowie, Wander

(University of Groningen, The Netherlands).Making sense of polysemous words. LanguageLearning (University of Michigan, USA), 53, 3(2003), 547–586.

Although vocabulary can be successfully acquiredthrough incidental learning, decoding meaning throughinference from context is not necessarily the mosteffective method in instructional settings. This articleargues that the guessing meanings from context can bemade more efficient if learners are given core senses ofpolysemous words as cues to help learners develop a“precise elaboration”. Experiments were conducted inwhich two groups of Dutch students of English weregiven 18 pairs of sentences with either the core senseor a noncore sense provided for each target word andwere asked to guess and give a correct Dutch translationof the figurative senses of each underlined polysemousword in the second sentence of each pair. Groups weregiven time to verify and memorize words and thenan immediate short-term recall test was administeredfollowed by an unannounced long-term retention testaround three weeks later. Tests indicated that providing

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Language learning ■learners with a core sense results in better guessing andlong-term retention of figurative senses of polysemouswords than does providing cues involving nonliteralsenses. The authors conclude that finding the core senseof a polysemous word and then creating meaningfullinks between words is a useful strategy for studentslearning vocabulary.

04–614 Weldon, A. and Trautmann, G. (U. ofNorth Carolina-Asheville, USA). Spanish and

service-learning: pedagogy and praxis. Hispania(Ann Arbor, USA), 86, 3 (2003), 574–585.

More and more Spanish instructors in the USAare turning to service-learning to enhance studentlearning, especially oral comprehension, conversationand cultural understanding. Even in areas where thereis a small Spanish-speaking population it is possible anddesirable to place students in direct contact with nativeSpanish speakers, through links between the universityand various community agencies. This paper describesthe effects on American university students of Spanish ofservice-learning in a local health centre in California. Itis argued that if the service-learning is well planned andmonitored and pedagogically tied to specific academicgoals, objectives, methods and assessment, it can be asignificant tool in reaching the ACTFL’s “standards forforeign language teaching”. These standards, known asthe “five Cs” – communicating, cultures, connections,comparisons, communities – are shown to have beenmet. The students benefited personally as well asacademically from the experience and it is posited thatUSAmerican-Latino-relations also benefited from theLatinos realising that there were USAmericans whowere happy to help them.

04–615 Wen, W. P. (Xiangtan U., Hunan, P.R. ofChina [email protected]) and Clement, R.

A Chinese conceptualisation of willingness to

communicate in ESL. Language, Culture andCurriculum, (Clevedon, UK) 16, 1 (2003), 18–38.

MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) heuristic model of willingnessto communicate (WTC) is based on research principallyconducted in the western world. This paper proposes arevision of the WTC model so as to reflect more closelythe situation in English language Chinese classrooms.Two main revisions are suggested: changing somestructural relationships between constructs included inthe MacIntyre model and reinforcing some of thevariables from a Chinese perspective. The paper arguesthat cultural values based on Confucianism dominatethe shaping of an individual’s perception and wayof learning, as evident in L2 communication. Thelinguistic, communicative and psychological variablesthat might affect students’ willingness to communicatein a Chinese setting are explored and potential relationsbetween these and Chinese cultural values are exem-plified. Suggestions for empirical research are given.

04–616 Yeh, Yuli and Wang, Chai-wei. (NationalTsing Hua U., Taiwan; Email: [email protected]). Effects of multimedia

vocabulary annotations and learning styles on

vocabulary learning. Calico Journal (Texas, USA),21, 1 (2003), 131–144.

CALL represents one potentially powerful method forincreasing language learners’ vocabulary size due toits capacity for multimedia presentation of glossaryannotations. This study firstly aims to investigate theeffectiveness of three types of vocabulary annotationson vocabulary learning for 82 freshmen EFL students inTaiwan. A further objective was to see whether learnerswith certain perceptual learning styles – auditory,visual-verbal, visual-nonverbal, and mixed preferences –benefited more from a particular type of vocabularyannotation. Whole class data were collected on thepre-test and a questionnaire on perceptual learningstyles and, after students had used the courseware, theircomments on the same were noted and a post-testgiven. Post-test results indicated that the version of thecourseware with the text plus picture annotations wasthe most effective for vocabulary learning. Perceptuallearning styles did not seem to have a significantinfluence on the effectiveness of vocabulary annotations.

04–617 Yuet Hung Chan, C. (City U. of HongKong; Email: [email protected]). Cultural

content and reading proficiency: a comparison

of mainland Chinese and Hong Kong learners of

English. Language, Culture and Curriculum,(Clevedon, UK) 16, 1 (2003), 60–69.

The study described here investigates the effects ofbackground knowledge and language proficiency onL2 reading comprehension. Two groups of students,one from Hong Kong (HK) and one from mainlandChina (MC), were divided into 2 proficiency levels,intermediate and post-intermediate. In the reading tests,the HK intermediate learners did significantly betterthan MC on a cloze text about HK, though the groupswere about same on a neutral text; the post-intermediategroups were about the same on the HK text, showingthat at higher level proficiency aids comprehension;results also showed that high language proficiencycompensates for lack of background knowledge and,conversely, background knowledge compensates forlack of language proficiency. It is concluded thatbackground knowledge facilitates L2 reading compre-hension; that L2 proficiency plays a significant role inreading comprehension; and that there are significantinteractions between background knowledge andproficiency. The findings have implications for teachingreading to L2 learners.

04–618 Zsiga, Elizabeth (GeorgetownUniversity, USA; Email: [email protected]).Articulatory timing in a second language –

evidence from Russian and English. Studies in

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■ Reading and writingSecond Language Acquisition (New York, USA), 25,3 (2003), 399–432.

The study reported here compares patterns ofconsonant-to-consonant timing at word boundariesin English and Russian and investigates the roles oftransfer and emergence of linguistic universals in secondlanguage (L2) acquisition. Native Russian speakerslearning English and native English speakers learningRussian were asked to produce phrases in Englishand Russian contrasting VC#CV, VC#V and V#CVsequences. The duration of stop closures was measuredas well as the percentage of consonant sequences inwhich the first consonant was audibly released. Resultsconfirmed that in their native language (L1), Russianspeakers had a higher percentage of released finalconsonants than did English speakers in their L1 aswell as a higher ratio of sequence-to-singleton duration.Examination of the timing patterns across differentclusters revealed different articulatory strategies for thetwo languages. The native Russian pattern transferredto L2 English, but the native English pattern did nottransfer to L2 Russian. The study offers evidence forboth articulatory transfer and the emergence of a defaultpattern of articulation, characteristic of neither L1 norL2.

04–619 Zughoul, Muhammed Raji and

Abdul-Fattah, Hussein (Yarmouk U., Jordan).Translational collocational strategies of Arab

learners of English: a study in lexical semantics.Babel (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 49, 1 (2003),59–81.

Arab learners of English encounter a serious problemwith collocational sequences. This paper has threeobjectives: it investigates the use of collocates as anindicator of language proficiency, and the strategiesArab learners of English use in their attempt to comeup with the proper collocation; and it demonstrateshow equivalent English and Arabic words combinedifferently. A translation test of 16 Arabic collocations(presented in appendix) was administered to graduatesand undergraduates, to elicit receptive and productivecompetence (multiple choice and free translationrespectively). Twelve distinct communication strategiesmanipulated by the subjects were identified, and theseare exemplified and described. In the opinion ofthe authors, the overall proficiency of the studentsin English collocational sequences was held to beinadequate. The findings substantiated the role of thenative language in foreign language production. Theauthors conclude that greater instructional focus oncollocation is needed.

Reading and writing

04–620 Akamatsu, Nobuhiko (DoshishaUniversity, Japan; Email: [email protected].). The effects of first language

orthographic features on second language

reading in text. Language Learning (Michigan,USA), 53, 2 (2003), 207–231.

This paper reports on a study which investigated theeffects of first language (L1) orthographic features onsecond language (L2) reading. Three groups of fluentL2 readers with a variety of backgrounds (Chinese,Japanese and Persian) were provided with Englishpassages printed in either a normal manner or withthe words case alternated and asked to read them forcomprehension. Results showed that in terms of readingspeed, the Chinese and Japanese (nonalphabetic L1groups) were more adversely affected by case alternationthan was the Persian group (an alphabetic L1 group).The author concludes that, because of L1 effects onbasic processing in L2 reading, L2 readers with anonalphabetic background may be less efficient inprocessing the constituent letters in English words thanthose with an L1 alphabetic background.

04–621 Argamon, S., Koppel, M., Fine, J. and

Shimoni, A. R. (Department of computer Scienceat the Illinois Institute of Technology. Email:[email protected]). Gender, genre and writing

style in formal written texts. Text (Berlin,Germany), 23, 3 (2003), 321–346.

Using a corpus of 604 documents from the BritishNational Corpus, this study attempts to analyse featuresof female and male writing. The EG algorithm was usedto select useful features for female and male indicators,showing personal pronouns to indicate female-authoredtexts and determiners and quantifiers male ones. Thepaper suggests that female and male writers use differentmeans to signal to the reader the subject of discussion.Females tend to make use of shared knowledge whereasmales give more details; this difference aligns withinvolved and informative writing. Female pronoun use,in particular first, second and third person pronouns,points to a higher degree of personalisation of thetext. In contrast male writers tend to depersonalisetexts. Since pronouns occur with far greater frequencyin fiction than in nonfiction while determiners aremore common in nonfiction than fiction, the authorssuggest a correlation between female-male and fiction-nonfiction differences.

04–622 Dreyer, Carisma and Nel, Charl

(Potchefstroom U., South Africa; Email: [email protected]). Teaching reading strategies

and reading comprehension within a

technology-enhanced learning environment.System (Oxford, UK), 31, 3 (2003), 349–365.

The low levels of reading ability among undergraduatestudents in South Africa has an adverse effect on theirchances of academic success. This article describes theformat and structure of a strategic reading instructioncomponent in an English for Professional Purposescourse offered in a technology-enhanced environmentover a 13-week semester. The programme consisted

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Reading and writing ■of: a printed interactive study guide, (explaining thebenefits of particular strategies); face-to-face contactsessions (modelling strategies and providing practiceopportunities); and a technology-enhanced feature inthe form of Varsite, a Learning Content ManagementSystem (LCMS). In pre-testing, all 131 first-year Englishas a Second Language (ESL) students were given aReading Strategies Questionnaire, the TOEFL test,and two reading comprehension tests. Subjects weredivided into ‘successful’ and ‘at risk’ (over 30% of thoseenrolled), according to their performance on the readingcomprehension test. Successful students’ strategy usewas found to be goal-directed, seeming to monitorand evaluate their learning and reading comprehension,while the at-risk used mainly meta-cognitive strategies.Post-testing of reading comprehension, followingcompletion of the strategic reading instruction module,showed significant increases in reading comprehensionscores and use of reading strategies, especially amongthe ‘at-risk’ students in the experimental group.

04–623 Fender, Michael (U. of Pittsburg, PA.,USA; Email: [email protected]). English word

recognition and word integration skills of native

Arabic- and Japanese-speaking learners of

English as a second language. AppliedPsycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 24, 2 (2003),289–316.

It is well documented that Arab English as a SecondLanguage (ESL) learners experience difficulties withword recognition processes, while Japanese studentsexperience greater difficulty, relative to other groups,with ESL word integration processes (consideredpostlexical word processing skills). This article reports astudy of the different word-level processing difficultiesfor Arab and Japanese ESL students in order to explainthe differences they experience while reading Englishtexts. After an overview of L1 word recognitionskills and their development, two experiments aredescribed, with 19 Arab & 20 Japanese intermediateand low-advanced ESL students as subjects. In thefirst, word recognition skills and speeds were examinedby presenting words and nonwords on a computerscreen. Japanese ESL learners were found to be ableto process consistent and inconsistent words morerapidly and more accurately than Arab ESL learners.The second experiment used a sentence reading task,using the moving window technique, to measure wordintegration skills, and found the Arab ESL participantsto be significantly more accurate than the JapaneseESL participants in integrating words on-line intolarger units of meaning and comprehending them. Itis suggested that Arab ESL learners would benefit fromsupplementary word recognition tasks, while Japaneselearners would benefit from practice targeting thedevelopment of incremental word recognition skills.

04–624 Flowerdew, L. (Hong Kong University ofScience and Techology). A combined corpus and

systemic-functional analysis of the

problem-solution pattern in a student and

professional corpus of technical writing. TESOLQuarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA), 37, 3 (2003),489–511.

The author aims to describe similarities and differencesbetween expert and novice writing in the problem-solution pattern, a frequent rhetorical pattern oftechnical academic writing. The paper draws on twoanalytic perspectives, corpus analysis and systemic-functional analysis. The study compares a corpus ofundergraduate student writing and one containingprofessional writing. Each corpus totalled approximately250,000 words. Wordsmith Tools software was usedto compare these two corpora with a 1 million core-written British National Corpora. The research includessearches for key words that provided linguistic evidencefor the problem-solution pattern. Along with manysimilarities between the expert and the novice writing,the study’s findings indicate important differences inthe use of problem within the causal relation patterns.The student corpus displayed a more restricted use ofvocabulary and pattern than found in the professionalcorpus. The author suggests that a combination ofcorpus analysis and systemic-functional analysis is avaluable tool in isolating insufficiencies in studentlexico-grammar.

04–625 Goswami, Usha (U. of Cambridge, UK),Ziegler, Johannes C., Dalton, Louise and

Schneider, Woflgang. Nonword reading across

orthographies: How flexible is the choice of

reading units? Applied Psycholinguistics(Cambridge, UK), 24, 2 (2003), 235–248.

This article reports a study of grapheme-phonemeprocessing strategies employed by English and Germanreaders. It was predicted that children learning toread inconsistent orthographies such as English wouldshow considerable flexibility in making use of spelling-sound correspondences, whereas children learning toread consistent orthographies such as German woulduse mainly small-size grapheme-phoneme strategies.The hypothesis was tested in a cross-language blockingexperiment. Two types of nonword were devised:(1) large-unit nonwords, analogous with real words,that could be read either by using rhyme units, orby grapheme-phoneme correspondence; (2) small-unitnonwords with no orthographic rhyme neighbours thatcould not be read by lexical analogy. Three groups of24 English children at reading age levels 7, 8 and 9 yearstook part, and 25, 23, and 20 German childrenwere rested at 7, 8, and 9 years old. Half receivedblocked presentation of nonwords, and half receivedmixed presentation. English children showed betterperformance when items were blocked by nonwordtype, but less good performance in mixed lists. Thissuggests that in mixed lists English readers have toswitch back and forth between small-unit and large-unit processing, resulting in switching costs.

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■ Reading and writing04–626 Hinkel, Eli (Seattle University, USA;Email: [email protected]). Tense, aspect and

the passive voice in L1 and L2 academic texts.Language Teaching Research (London, UK), 8, 1(2004), 5.

This study analyses specific written discourseproduction in which NNSs’ usage of English tensesand voice appears to be dramatically different from thatof the NSs. The data for the study narrowly focuses ona small number of verb phrase features, such as tenses,aspects and the passive voice, examining how they arepresented in writing instruction texts and identifyingareas of L2 learning in need of intensive instruction. Theresults of the study demonstrate that even after manyyears of L2 learning and use, advanced NNS studentsmay have difficulty with the conventional use of thetenses, aspects of the passive voice in written academicdiscourse. The paper also offers some practical attemptsto improve NNS students’ production of L2 writtenacademic code.

04–627 Hirose, Keiko (Aichi PrefecturalUniversity, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan; Email:[email protected]). Comparing L1 and L2

organizational patterns in the argumentative

writing of Japanese EFL students. Journal ofSecond Language Writing (New Jersey, USA), 12

(2003), 181–209.

This article reports on an investigation into therelationship between Japanese students’ first language(L1) and second language (L2) writing in terms oforganization. In the first section, the author summarizesprevious research into Japanese L1 and L2 writinginstruction, and English-Japanese contrastive rhetoric.In the second section, the author describes the study; 15Japanese EFL students, third- and fourth-year Japaneseuniversity students majoring in American Studies wrotetwo argumentative essays in response to the sameprompt, one in Japanese and one in English. TheL2 compositions were scored by English-speakingprofessors, and the L1 compositions by Japaneseprofessors, for clarity of theme, appeal to readers,expression, organization, knowledge of language forms,and social awareness. The compositions were thenanalyzed for macro-level rhetorical pattern, locationof main idea and presence or absence of a summarystatement. Results show that there were similaritiesin the use of deductive type organizational patternsin both L1 and L2, yet organization scores werenot significantly correlated across the two languages.Furthermore, L2 composition total and organizationscores were significantly different from those of L1,and some students showed problems of organizing bothL1 and L2 texts. The author concludes by discussingimplications for further research and pedagogy.

04–628 Lee, Miranda Y. P. (Hong KongPolytechnic University of Hong Kong; Email:[email protected]). Discourse structure and

rhetoric of English narratives: differences

between native English and Chinese non-native

English writers. Text (Berlin, Germany) 23, 3(2003), 347–368.

This paper begins with a review of previous studiesof narrative texts written by writers of differentlanguage and cultural backgrounds. The focus is thennarrowed to contrastive studies of narrative structure andrhetoric and studies of both written and oral narrativesare summarised. These studies suggest that narrativesproduced by different cultural groups have a similaroverall structure but their rhetoric is different. In thecurrent study, 40 Chinese undergraduates (CWs) and40 English-speaking undergraduates (EWs) were givena picture story and asked to write the story for a10 year-old English-speaking child. Both groupsproduced stories with a similar global structure,containing the main points of a narrative: orientation,initiating and complicating events, a high point and a coda.More of the CWs gave specific information on timeorientation while the EWs were more likely to namethe characters in the story. The EWs are more aware ofwriter responsibility and tended to give more backgroundinformation thus filling the information gap for thereader, whereas the CWs expect readers to interpret thestory. Finally the CWs gave an explicit moral to thestory and presented this from the point of view of anolder, additional character.

04–629 Matsuda, Paul K. (University of NewHampshire, USA; Email: [email protected]),Canagarajah, A. Suresh, Harklau, L., Hyland, K.

and Warshauer, Mark. Changing currents in

second language writing research: a

colloquium. Journal of Second Language Writing(New Jersey, USA), 12 (2003), 151–179.

This article is based on a colloquium (AmericanAssociation for Applied Linguistics, 2002) on changingcurrents in second language (L2) writing. Harklaudiscusses the needs of young adult immigrants attendingAmerican universities, and suggests a need for greaterattention to ethnolinguistic minority students in othercountries and to issues of writer identity. Canagarajahexamines the notion of multiliteracies in the contextof L2 education, as the negotiation of discoursesand identities has come about in part because ofthe diversity of English-language users, and in partbecause of the impact of new technology on writing.Warshauer further focuses on issues of technology andL2 writing, and discusses growing areas of research,such as computer-assisted classroom discussion, e-mailexchanges, and Web-based writing, calling for moreresearch in terms of both ethnographic and corpus-based studies. Hyland discusses the emergence ofdiscourse analysis in studies of L2 writing, summarizessome of the research in this area, and suggests possibledirections for the future. Matsuda concludes with asection on the importance of metadisciplinary inquiryin the context of L2 writing research.

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Reading and writing ■04–630 Moreno, Ana (Universidad de Leon,Spain; Email: [email protected]). Matching

theoretical descriptions of discourse and

practical applications to teaching: the case of

causal metatext. English for Specific Purposes(Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 22, 3 (2003),265–295.

Many recent task-based textbooks on academic writinginclude at least one unit which aims at teaching howto write a cause-and/or-effect analytical essay. Mostof these units introduce tasks which focus on how toexpress causal relations. This paper claims that, for thesefocus-on-form tasks to be useful for upper-intermediateto advanced English for academic purposes learners andadequate from a descriptive point of view, they shouldbe based on comprehensive descriptions of this aspectof discourse as it behaves in the genre intended to belearned. The study compares the accounts of causalmetatext given by a sample of 11 textbooks on academicwriting to the results obtained from analysing the actualexpression of 283 causal coherence relations drawnfrom a sample of 30 cause-and/or-effect essays. Theresults reveal that the textbook accounts examined oftenprovide a narrow picture of how this area of languageworks in this specific subgenre. The paper suggestshow these applied descriptions could be improved tooffer a more adequate and presumably more helpfulillustration of causal metatext in this subgenre. It alsooffers some suggestions as to how causal metatext couldbe introduced to the targeted students through anawareness-raising process.

04–631 Ramanathan, Vaidehi (University ofCalifornia, Davis, USA; Email: [email protected]). Written textual production and

consumption (WTPC) in vernacular and

English-medium settings in Gujarat, India.Journal of Second Language Writing (Ann Arbor,USA), 12 (2003), 125–150.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview ofkey characteristics of the socioeducational contextthat shapes the written textual production andconsumption (WTPC) of “English-medium” (EM)and “vernacular-medium” (VM) students in Gujarat,India. The author provides background informationregarding general national and statewide languagepolicies regarding VM and EM education, and analysesthe two socioeducational practices which shape theWTPC of both VM and EM students: the focuson learning facts and the importance of exams andtextbooks. Next, he analyses the ways in which Englishlanguage textbooks used in VM and EM K-12 schoolssocialize the students into divergent ways of writing,thinking and learning before they reach university.The author concludes by suggesting some ways inwhich institutions and individual faculty are mitigatingthe gulf between students socialized in the differentmediums of instruction by working indirectly on theirWTPC.

04–632 Rasinski, Timothy V. (Kent State U.,USA) and Hoffman, James V. (U. of Texas, Austin,USA). Oral reading in the school literacy

curriculum. Reading Research Quarterly (Newark,DE, USA), 38, 4 (2003), 510–522.

The decline of reading aloud as a method of instructionover the past half-century has meant that it has beenseverely understudied. This article explores the roleof oral reading in instructional practice, primarily atthe elementary level with students who struggle inreading. Existing theory and research on oral readingare reviewed and an attempt is made to conceptualizethe positive role oral reading may play in improvingclassroom reading instruction. The authors argue thatthere have been at least four strands of research overthe past thirty years: (a) oral reading fluency, (b) teacherresponses to students’ miscues, (c) self-monitoring andmiscue analysis, and (d) guided reading and strategydevelopment. The authors conclude that the idealimplementation of oral reading for classroom readinginstruction, including appropriate balance of silent andoral reading, is still an incomplete story. They end witha call for more scientific and systematic studies.

04–633 Saito, Hidetoshi and Fujita, Tomoko

(Hokusei Gakuen University, Japan; Email: [email protected]). Characteristics and user

acceptance of peer rating in EFL writing

classrooms. Language Teaching Research(London, UK), 8, 1 (2003), 31–54.

Lack of research on the characteristics of peer assessmentin EFL writing may inhibit teachers from appreciatingthe utility of this approach to assessment. This studyaddresses the following research questions: (1) Howsimilar are peer, self and teacher ratings of EFLwriting?; (2) Do students favour peer ratings?; and(3) Does peer feedback influence students’ attitudeabout peer rating? Forty-seven college students studyingEnglish writing in a Japanese college were assignedto write two essays. Each essay was commentedon and rated by two teachers, three peers and thewriters themselves. Students also completed a five-item questionnaire about their attitudes regarding peerrating. Peer and teacher rating were found to correlatesignificantly. The results of the questionnaire indicatedthat students had favourable attitiudes towards peerrating.

04–634 Steinman, Linda (Seneca College,Toronto, Canada). Cultural collisions in L2

academic writing. TESL Canada Journal (Burnaby,B.C., Canada), 20, 2 (2003), 80–91.

Learning to write in English for academic purposespresents a significant challenge for non-native speakers.Not only must they deal with the obvious linguisticand technical issues such as syntax, vocabulary, andformat, but they must also become familiar withWestern notions of academic rhetoric. (West or Western

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■ Language testingin this article refer primarily to North America.)Collisions of cultures are experienced when thediscourse practices L2 writers are expected to reproduceclash with what they know, believe, and value intheir L1 writing. This study reviews a range ofliterature that addresses writing and culture. Describedby researchers and by L2 writers are collisions regardingvoice, organization, reader/writer responsibility, topic,and identity. Implications for writing pedagogy arediscussed, including: awareness of contrastive rhetoricon the part of ESL writing instructors; instructors’acknowledgement of and appreciation for the priorknowledge that students bring from their L1; realizationon the part of ESL writing instructors that Westernnotions of, for example, voice are simply one wayamong many of expressing oneself; and a needfor open discussion with students about how theymight incorporate standard Western notions of writingwithout compromising their own identity.

04–635 Zareva, Alla (University of GeorgiaAthens Georgia.) Transfer effects on the process

of L2 reading and comprehension. LiteracyAcross Cultures (Fukui, Japan), 6 (2003), 25–34.

Transfer across languages is a variable that has beenextensively studied by SLA researchers. Many researchstudies have investigated this by studying features of L2output, and have suggested that instead of being a causeof negative transfer or interference, the native languagesystem can occupy a valuable place in the scheme ofthings. While most transfer researchers have investigatedthis phenomenon by studying various features oflearners’ second language (L2) output, this paper reportson a study at the level of the process underlying outputproduction, i.e. the possible effects of a transfer on theL2 reading comprehension as a process. Such transfereffects are discussed with the aim to point to thedifferent perspectives of investigating this phenomenonas outlined by SLA research, psycholinguistic models oflexical access and theories of intelligence. In this way,it is possible to broaden our understanding of transferwhen reading another language

Language testing

04–636 Chapelle, Carol A., Jamieson, Joan

and Hegelheimer, Volker (Iowa State U., USA;Email: [email protected]). Validation of a

web-based ESL test. Language Testing (London,UK), 20, 4, (2003), 409–439.

The world wide web offers a mechanism for realisingsome of the current ideals for interactive languageassessment by providing learners with information abouttheir language ability at their convenience. However,acceptable validation processes need to be undertakenwith these tests. The first part of this paper discusses thecomplexity of validation and then goes on to describea project involving 50 subjects from university andcommunity ESL classes, in which the purpose of a

low-stakes web-based ESL test guided its design andthe validation process. Findings are discussed in termsof what kind of theoretical rationales can be brought tobear on a validity argument, how testing consequencesas one aspect of validity can be considered at thetest design stage, and how a validity argument can berepresented to demonstrate the positive, negative andunknown aspects of the test use.

04–637 Choi, Inn-Chull (Sungshin Women’s U.,Republic of Korea; Email: [email protected]),Sung Kim, Kyoung and Boo, Jaeyool.

Comparability of a paper-based language test

and a computer-based language test. LanguageTesting (London, UK), 20, 3 (2003), 295–320.

With the advent of the digital revolution, languagetesters have endeavoured to utilize state-of-the-artcomputer technology to satisfy the ever-growingneed for a tool to measure English communicationskills with maximal accuracy and efficiency. Thanksto the concerted efforts made by experts insuch fields as computational linguistics, computerengineering, computer-assisted language learning, andpsychometrics, language testers have recently succeededin developing computer/web-based language tests.Among them are the Test of English as a ForeignLanguage computer-based test (TOEFL CBT) byEducational Testing Service, and CommuniCAT bythe University of Cambridge Local ExaminationsSyndicate. As with the paper-based language test(PBLT), more rigorous research is now being conductedon the validity of computer-based language tests(CBLT) and computer-adaptive language tests (CALT).Content analyses and comparability studies of PBLTand CBLT/CALT are prerequisites to such validationresearch. In this context, utilizing an EFL test batteryentitled the Test of English Proficiency developed bySeoul National University (TEPS), the present studyis aimed at addressing the issue of the comparabilitybetween PBLT and CBLT based on content andconstruct validation employing content analyses basedon corpus linguistic techniques in addition to suchstatistical analyses as correlational analyses, ANalysis OfVAriance (ANOVA), and confirmatory factor analyses.The findings support comparability between the CBLTversion and the PBLT version of the TEPS subtests(listening comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, andreading comprehension) in question.

04–638 Fulcher, Glenn (U. of Dundee, UK; Email:[email protected]) and Marquez Reiter,

Rosina. Task difficulty in speaking tests.Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 3 (2003),321–344.

The difficulty of speaking tasks has only recentlybecome a topic of investigation in language testing. Thishas been prompted by work on discourse variabilityin second language acquisition (SLA) research, newclassificatory systems for describing tasks, and the advent

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Language testing ■of statistical techniques that enable the prediction of taskdifficulty. This article reviews assumptions underlyingapproaches to research into speaking task difficulty andquestions the view that test scores always vary withtask conditions or discourse variation. A new approachto defining task difficulty in terms of the interactionbetween pragmatic task features and first language (L1)cultural background is offered, and the results of a studyto investigate the impact of these variables on test scoresare presented. The relevance for the generalizabilityof score meaning and the definition of constructs inspeaking tests is discussed.

04–639 Fulcher, Glenn (U. of Dundee, UK; Email:[email protected]). Interface design in

computer-based language testing. LanguageTesting (London, UK), 20, 4 (2003), 384–408.

Although the number of computer-based languagetests has grown rapidly in recent years, there is littlepublished literature on the process or on good practicein the development and design of such tests. This paperdescribes a three-phase process model for interfacedesign. The first phase is planning and initial design.Here, account must be taken of good practice in thedesign of navigation systems and presentation of testcontent. In the second, the interface is tested forusability in an iterative process with constant revision.In the third phase, there may be fine-tuning to theinterface following large-scale field testing. The paperalso describes concurrent test development activitiesthat take place during each of the design phases.Throughout, the aim of good interface design is tomake the interface easy and quick to use for the test-taker so that it does not constitute a source of construct-irrelevant variance, thereby threatening the inferences tobe drawn from test scores.

04–640 Hill, K. Assessment in transition.Babel, (Adelaide, Australia), 38,1 (2003), 19–24.

This paper discusses the current Australian policyof teaching foreign languages in primary schools.This well-established government programme is acontentious issue for principals, primary and secondaryteachers, and media commentators. The paper arguesfor improved assessment and reporting to evaluatethe effectiveness of the primary languages policyand to improve learning outcomes for students whocontinue the language at secondary school. A majorreason for bureaucratic support is higher proficiencyin the long term, although some research indicatesthis is does not always happen. Two major studiesare examined: a Melbourne-based French study and anational, longitudinal study. Some factors for instancesof poor long-term proficiency are considered and waysto overcome these are discussed. Finally the paperlooks at innovative methods of assessment in managingthe transition from primary to secondary schools, inparticular the European Language Portfolio and theAustralian Language Certificates programme.

04–641 Luoma, Sari and Tarnanan, Mirja (U. ofJyvaskyla, Finland; Email: [email protected]).Creating a self-rating instrument for second

language writing: from idea to implementation.Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 4, (2003),440–465.

While self-directed learning, learner autonomy, andpeer assessment have all become increasingly popularin language learning in recent years, self-rating inlanguage testing is still quite rare. This article providesa detailed report, with samples, on the developmentof a self-rating instrument for L2 writing from theinitial idea to usability testing. The paper begins witha detailed description of the birth and development ofthe DIALANG language assessment system and goeson to report findings from a usability study with sixlearners of Finnish as a second language. Data consist ofrecords of task and benchmark development, participantbackground data, learner texts, video recordings madeduring the self-rating process, retrospective interviewswith learners, and teacher ratings of the learner texts.Findings suggest that the instrument is successful inpromoting adequate – albeit at times over-estimated –self-rating and in motivating the learners to think moreabout their own assessment.

04–642 Schlichting, J.E.P.T. (Liesbeth) (U. ofUtrecht; The Netherlands; Email: [email protected]) and Henk C. Lutje Spelberg. A test

for measuring syntactic development in young

children. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 3(2003), 241–266.

This article considers linguistic, psychometric andclinical aspects of the Test for Sentence Development, asubtest of a new Dutch language production battery,the Schlichting Test voor Taalproductie (SchlichtingTest for Language Production). The purpose of theTest for Sentence Development is to assess the syntacticknowledge in the language production of young Dutchchildren. The Test for Sentence Development aimsto give an index of the level of grammatical skills ofchildren from age 1;8 to 6;3 and makes use of functionalimitation as an elicitation technique. The advantage ofthe new test is that very young children can be assessedsystematically, which was not possible previously. Thearticle gives details of the standardization study, in whichthe tests were administered to a representative sample of1049 Dutch children. The authors conclude that thereliability and validity results justify the use of the testin clinical settings and language research.

04–643 Yamashita, Junko (Nagoya U., Japan;Email: yamashita @cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp). Processes

of taking a gap-filling test: comparison of skilled

and less skilled EFL readers. Language Testing(London, UK), 20, 3 (2003), 267–293.

The present study investigates how skilled and lessskilled readers answered a gap-filling (or rational

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■ Teacher educationdeletion cloze) test in order to examine whethersuch tests can measure text-level processing ability.Twelve Japanese EFL students (six skilled and sixless skilled readers) completed a gap-filling test whilethinking aloud about their test-taking processes. Theirverbal protocols were categorized according to theclassification of cloze item types developed by Bachman(1985). Results showed that both skilled and less skilledreaders used text-level information more frequentlythan other types of information. The skilled readers,however, used text-level information more frequentlythan the less skilled readers. Qualitative analysis ofthe protocols revealed further differences in the useof different types of information between the groups.Although there were several cases where the itemswere answered correctly with local grammatical cluesand extra-textual background knowledge, overall, thegap-filling test generated text level processing anddifferentiated well between skilled and less skilledreaders. The present study, therefore, supports the claimthat a gap-filling test can be used as a test to measurehigher order processing ability.

Teacher education

04–644 Donaghue, H. (Shajah Women’s College,UAE). An instrument to elicit teachers’ beliefs

and assumptions. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 4(2003), 344–351.

The author argues that teachers’ beliefs influence theacceptance and uptake of new approaches, techniques,and activities, and therefore play an important partin teacher development. This article puts forwardsuggestions for trainers running teacher educationcourses. The author argues that trainers shouldencourage participants to think about their personalbeliefs and theories about teaching before providinginput. The article reports on the use of an instrumentdesigned to elicit teachers’ beliefs based on Kelly’s(1969) theory of personal constructs. The authorsuggests specific procedures and activities for using anadapted version of Kelly’s repertory grid technique.The author claims that this kind of technique is usefulto encourage reflective thinking at the beginning of atraining course.

04–645 Heller-Murphy, Anne and Northcott,

Joy (U. of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK). “Who does

she think she is?” constraints on autonomy in

language teacher education. Edinburgh WorkingPapers in Applied Linguistics (Edinburgh, Scotland,UK), 12 (2003), 10–18.

The central concern of the authors in this work-in-progress report is the autonomy in languageteacher education of both the ‘educator’ and the‘participants’. They propose a model that will be ofuse to those attempting to integrate an understandingof autonomy into teacher education. The model’sfour interconnecting elements (participant resistance

and openness; educator self-image; teacher educationsettings; and autonomy of all concerned) all have animpact on each other. Each element is discussed, butit is clear that the two ‘problem’ nodes in the modelare educator self-image and participant resistance. Arange of strategies to address some of the difficultiesinherent in these two areas is proposed. Furtherinvestigation is advocated into participant attitudes toteacher education/development; participant reactionsto educators in different settings; and the effect ofaudience on session design.

04–646 LeLoup, J. W. (State U. ofNew-York-Cortland) and Schmidt-Rinchart, B.

A Venezuelan experience: professional

development for teachers, meaningful activities

for students. Hispania (Ann Arbor, USA), 86, 3(2003), 586–591.

For their professional development foreign languageeducators need to maintain language skills, increasecultural knowledge and keep current with develop-ments in the field that will enhance their performanceas classroom teachers. This article presents a modelfor professional development that is suited to the in-service language teacher with limited time and finan-cial resources who wants to improve all aspects oftheir development and maximise their performanceoutcomes. It describes a 2-week total immersion coursein Venezuela for teachers of Spanish from the USA. Adescription of the instructional models is given, alongwith examples of lessons used. The pedagogy coveredthe teaching of the 4 skills, as well as grammar, the com-municative method and the use of authentic materials.

04–647 Macaro, E. (University of Oxford; Email:[email protected])Second language teachers as second language

classroom researchers. Language LearningJournal (Rugby, UK), 27 (2003), 43–51.

Many researchers and language teachers havecommented on the need for greater teacher involvementin research. This paper briefly discusses this need, thenlists points which may inhibit teachers from carrying outtheir own research. Notably the author comments onthe time factor and throughout the paper argues that ifsomething is added to the workload then something elsehas to be ‘subtracted’. The paper is then split betweenpractical advice on reading and understanding articles injournals, and ideas for research topics. The latter is veryaccessible and for each possible research question a briefbackground is given followed by up to four methodswhich could be used to answer the initial question.The paper ends with a brief section on publishingresearch. The aim throughout is to ‘de-mystify’ theresearch process and thus encourage teachers to engagein research, whether alone or alongside researchers.

04–648 Murphy, J. (New College, Nottingham).Task-based learning: the interaction between

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Bilingualism ■tasks and learners. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 57, 4(2003), 352–360.

This study investigates the relationship between tasksand learners. The author argues that it is necessary toconsider the ways in which learners interact with taskswithin the classroom environment. The author suggeststhat manipulation of task characteristics and conditionsmay not achieve the intended pedagogic outcomes, andthat new ways are needed to focus learners’ attention onform without sacrificing the meaning-driven principlesof task-based learning. The paper makes the case thatteachers are in a unique position with regard to theirunderstanding and knowledge of individual learners,and that a closer partnership between teachers andresearchers would be beneficial to support this process.The author argues that encouraging learners to noticedevelops their learner autonomy.

04–649 Urmston, Alan (Hong KongExaminations and Assessment Authority, HongKong; Email: [email protected]). Learning

to teach English in Hong Kong: the opinions of

teachers in training. Language and Education(Clevedon, UK), 17, 2 (2003), 112–137.

This article presents findings from a longitudinal studyof teachers learning to teach English in Hong Kongelementary schools. In 1994, 40 teachers enrolled inthe first year of the BA course in Teaching English asa Second Language (BATESL) at the City Universityof Hong Kong completed a detailed questionnairedesigned to assess their attitudes to the teaching ofEnglish in Hong Kong, including those related tothe two areas focused on in this article: professionalrelationships and responsibilities, and perceptions andvalues. 30 out of the 40 teachers completed a similarquestionnaire in 1997, at the end of their final yearon the BATESL course. The results of the comparisonof the two surveys show that pre-service teachers’beliefs and knowledge are based on their experiencesas students within the educational system, and thatthey are also strongly influenced by their experiencein the classroom as practice teachers. However, they arechanged relatively less by the training they receive on theBA course. The author concludes with some possibleimplications for teacher education in Hong Kong.

04–650 Wharton, Sue (University of Aston, UK;Email: [email protected]). Defining

appropriate criteria for the assessment of

master’s level TESOL assignments. Assessmentand Evaluation in Higher Education (London, UK),28, 6 (2003), 649–663.

This paper discusses assessment in a master’s degree forESOL teachers. It details the goals and purposes of thecourse and explores the development of criteria to meetthese. The author suggests that the resulting assessmentframework may be of interest to other departments whoassess similar research reports to the course assignments

discussed in this paper. The paper also offers a positionon the kinds of questions that should be asked and theways in which such questions may be researched in anyproject to (re)define assessment criteria in an academicprogramme.

04–651 Wildsmith-Cromarty, Rosemary

(University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa;Email: [email protected]). Mutual

apprenticeship in the learning and teaching of

an additional language. Language and Education(Clevedon, UK), 17, 2 (2003), 138–154.

Research is needed into the learning and teachingof African languages for greater understanding ofacquisition, and to better inform teaching practice. Thispaper reports on an action research project focused onthe learning and teaching of Zulu. During the firstphase, a lecturer from a university Applied LanguageStudies (ALS) department became a learner of Zulu.Data collected in this phase included the researcher’slanguage learning diary, as well as those of other learners,and results from four questionnaires administered tothe learners. From the data, principles emerged whichwere used to implement course revision. During phasetwo, a teacher from the Zulu course enrolled inthe Masters Programme in ALS, providing her witha better understanding of course development andmethodology. The ALS researcher continued as a Zululearner in the third phase, where her teacher was alsoher postgraduate student and co-teacher on a languagepedagogy course. She continued as a Zulu learner inthe fourth phase, during which her co-learners of Zulujoined her course on second language acquisition. Theauthor concludes the article by providing testimony ofthe different participants as to the benefits of tappinginto multiple perspectives for course design and forlanguage teaching/learning research.

Bilingualism

04–652 Castro, D. and Gavruseva, E. (Universityof Iowa; Email: [email protected]).Finiteness and aspect in Spanish/English

bilingual acquisition. First Language (Bucks, UK),23, 2 (2003), 171–192.

This paper investigates the acquisition of finiteness inthe languages of a Spanish/English bilingual child toexplore whether she treats the languages distinctly withregard to the ‘Optional Infinitive effect’ (OI). A briefbackground to this effect in child languages is given,with child Romance languages regarded as ‘non-OI’in comparison with child Germanic languages. Fromtranscripts of the child’s language, aspectual semanticsis discussed in relation to predicates; this specifies thetemporal interval of an event and its ‘telicity’ (whetheror not it has reached an endpoint). The paper concludesthat the emergence of finiteness in the child grammarsof both languages showed similar trends. This providesevidence for the ‘two separate systems’ hypothesis in

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■ Bilingualismearly bilingualism as the morphosyntactic effects aredifferent in the two grammars.

04–653 Gutierrez-Clellen, Vera F. (San DiegoState U., CA, USA; Email: [email protected])and Kreiter, Jacqueline. Understanding child

bilingual acquisition using parent and teacher

reports. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge,UK), 24, 2 (2003), 267–288.

This article reports a study of Spanish-English bilingualchildren in Southern California designed to examinethe correlation between exposure to language(s) andperformance. A secondary goal was to determine theaccuracy with which parents or teachers could ratethe child’s use and proficiency in the two languages.Questionnaires, given to parents of 57 second-gradechildren, were designed to determine years(s) ofexposure to Spanish, and language(s) spoken at homeand elsewhere. Interview subjects were also askedto rate (using a 5-point scale) language proficiencyof the child and of members of the householdinteracting with the child, and also to estimate hoursof exposure to or use of either language. The teacherquestionnaire asked for an estimate of child’s languageuse and performance for each language (using 5-point rating scale), and to estimate the percentage oftime that the child was exposed to each language.Children’s language proficiency was then tested throughspontaneous narration of a picture story. Exposureto Spanish at home was found to be a significantpredictor of grammatical performance, and not to affectEnglish performance. Parent and teacher ratings of useand proficiency were found to be generally reliable,indicating that they may be useful in determiningbilingual status.

04–654 Jaffe, Alexandra (California State U.,USA; Email: [email protected]). Talk around text:

literacy practices, cultural identity and authority

in a Corsican bilingual classroom. InternationalJournal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism(Clevedon, UK), 6, 3&4 (2003), 202–220.

This paper examines literacy practices in a Corsicanbilingual classroom, focusing on the way that pedagogicpractices attribute authentic and powerful identitiesto both the minority language and to learners. Thisinvolves meeting two sometimes conflicting goals:(1) fostering an intimate and authentic sense of culturalownership of the Corsican language among childrenwho are largely French-dominant; and (2) creatingsymbolic and functional parity between Corsican andFrench in the broader context of the Corsican languagerevitalisation agenda. The analysis of Corsican literacyinstruction in a Corsican bilingual school shows thatthese dual goals are addressed through practices thatinvolve the collective, collaborative production of texts(intimacy function) which are treated as authoritativein the class (power/parity function). These micro-levelpractices are replicated in the overall patterning of

literacy work in the two languages of the classroom,where there is virtual parity in the amount of literacywork done in the two languages, but in whichCorsican is the subject of less individual work andrigorous evaluation. The author also observes that thesymbolic validation of children’s linguistic and culturalauthenticity often takes place at the expense of teachingbasic language skills.

04–655 Marian, Viorica (Northwestern U., IL,USA; Email: [email protected]) and

Spivey, Michael. Bilingual and monolingual

processing of competing lexical items. AppliedPsycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 24, 2 (2003),173–194.

The traditional view that bilinguals and multilinguals areable to selectively activate and deactivate their languageshas been challenged by evidence for parallel activationof languages. The automatic activation, by bilinguals,of both lexicons during monolingual input can beinvestigated using eye tracking: participants receivespoken instructions to move objects around and theireye movements are recorded, revealing that they brieflyfixate objects with phonological similarities to thespoken word. This article describes an experiment withbilingual Russian-English speakers in which the objectswere manipulated to include words with phonologicalsimilarities in English and Russian. 15 Russian-Englishbilingual young adults, living in the US, participated inthe experiment. Using eye tracking, they were testedin first (L1) and second (L2) languages to examinespoken language processing under three conditions:when lexical items on a display competed for activationwith a target item (a) between languages (b) withinlanguage (c) simultaneously from between and withinlanguages. Monolingual English speakers tested underthe same conditions were found to encounter within-language lexical competition, whilst the results ofthe bilingual experiment indicate that bilinguals mayencounter competition from items between their twolanguages as well as within them. The study providessupport for parallel spoken language processing inbilinguals.

04–656 Martin, D., Krishnamurthy, R.,

Bhardwaj, M. and Charles, R. (School ofEducation, University of Birmingham, UK; Email:[email protected]). Language change in

young Panjabi/English children: implications for

bilingual language assessment. Child LanguageTeaching and Therapy (London, UK), 19, 3 (2003),245–266.

This paper examines language changes in Panjabi among50 bilingual Panjabi/English-speaking children aged6–7 years old. The study was carried out with theaim of helping Speech and Language Therapists andother language and teaching professionals to assessbilingual children with alleged learning difficulties.A psycholinguistic approach to code-switching is

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Sociolinguistics ■employed, based on the Matrix Language Frame(Myers-Scotton, 1993). The paper describes this modeland discusses types of vocabulary borrowing andword-level grammar patterns. The study involved thecollection of spoken data using tests, interviews andstory-telling and resulted in a corpus of some 36000tokens. Code-switching, that is, the use of Englishwithin predominantly Panjabi utterances, is recognisedas socially meaningful and the implications of the studybeing conducted within an English-speaking school bybilingual adults is discussed. The authors suggest thatthis generation of children are developing a new BritishPanjabi variation and argue that assessment of home-language Panjabi should take account of the influenceof English on word-level grammar and also borrowedEnglish vocabulary. They conclude that it is essentialthat bilingual assessors are speakers of the local varietyso that behaviours associated with language difficultyare not confused with language variation.

04–657 Olmedo, Irma M. (College of Education,U. of Illinois-Chicago, USA; Email: [email protected]). Language mediation among emergent

bilingual children. Linguistics and Education (NewYork, USA), 14, 2 (2003), 143–162.

Research into young children’s linguistic abilitiesshows that they are sensitive to the language skillsof their peers and can adjust their language tofacilitate comprehension and communication. Thisarticle examines the communicative strategies of a groupof kindergarten children in a dual language classroom inorder to understand their developing bilingualism. Animportant feature of the children’s classroom discourseis the way they collaborate with each other and serveas language mediators for their peers. Findings of thisresearch suggest that even children of kindergarten agemake judgments about the bilingual proficiency oftheir peers, monitor each other’s comprehension andproduction skills, and provide scaffolds to maximize thecomprehension and communication of their classmates.The author concludes by proposing questions raisedby the research. In particular, a critical question foreducators concerns the possible effect of languagemediation strategies on literacy development.

04–658 Ruan, J. (U. of Oklahoma, USA). Toward

a culture-sensitive pedagogy: emergent literacy

learning in Chinese-English bilinguals in

America. Language, Culture and Curriculum(Clevedon, UK), 16, 1 (2003), 39–47.

This paper reports on a case study of three bilingualChinese-English-speaking children in a mainstreamAmerican kindergarten. It focuses on the literacyexperiences of the children, both in and out of school,and on the cultural beliefs of the teacher. It showsthat the cultural beliefs of the teacher (including theassumption that all children had the same literacyexperiences, which proved not to be true) informedher instructional practices in the classroom, leading to

a lack of support for the three children. It is arguedthat a culture-sensitive pedagogy would provide the bestsupport for literacy learning in bilingual children.

04–659 Seeff-Gabriel, B. (Department of HumanCommunication Science, University CollegeLondon; Email: [email protected]). Phonological

processing: a platform for assisting

second-language learners with English spelling.Child Language Teaching and Therapy (Clevedon,UK), 19, 3 (2003), 291–310.

Many children with English as a second language (ESL)have difficulties in phoneme discrimination and thisimpacts on their spelling. Vowels in particular are aproblem, and it would be useful for teachers to know ifspelling and processing difficulties will self-correct overtime or will remain a challenge for the children. Inthis paper recent research on spelling difficulties amongbilingual children is discussed. The study was conductedin South Africa and involved 22 ESL learners between12.3 and 15.8 years of age, all of whom were speakersof one or more South African black languages. Theparticipants were required to undertake one spellingtask and three auditory discrimination tasks, the latterinvolved both words and non-words. The results showedthat all the ESL students had difficulties with spellingand auditory and phonological representation of wordscontaining South African EFL vowels. Non-wordscaused more difficulties than words as students didnot have semantic clues to help them. The authorsemphasise the importance of introducing words forspelling within a meaningful context as opposedto a spelling word list. They suggest that teachingspelling within a contrasting phoneme or minimal pairframework may help students to discriminate betweensounds.

Sociolinguistics

04–660 Chen Eoyang, Eugene (Indiana U., USA& Lingnan U., Hong Kong). English as a

postcolonial tool: anti-hegemonic subversions

in a hegemonic language. English Today(Cambridge, UK), 19, 4 (2003), 23–29.

English as the global (if not the universal) languagereflects a hegemony of the past as well as of thepresent: both a continuation of the British Empire (andthus demonized as a former colonial language) and,as the preferred language of international business andcapitalist development throughout the world, resentedas a powerful neo-colonial language. Yet, as this studyseeks to show, English is capable of acting against its ownimperialisms, to undermine its own hegemony. Theauthor explores how certain ethnic writers, involvedin contrasting cultures, by using different fictionallymimetic techniques, embody in a majority language(English) the strangeness of a minority culture, andmanage to make that strangeness accessible to the reader.The author concludes that such ethnic fictions create

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■ Sociolinguisticsbicultural, as opposed to bilingual, readers, illustratingthe difficulties of making facile distinctions betweencolonial and anti-colonial, between a hegemonic andan anti-hegemonic language.

04–661 Heinz, Bettina (Bowling Green State U.,USA; Email: [email protected]).Backchannel responses as strategic responses

in bilingual speakers’ conversations. Journal ofPragmatics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 35, 7(2003), 1113–1142.

Backchannel responses appear to be a universalbehaviour, but specific backchannel behaviours areparticular to language and culture. As such, theyoffer themselves to test central assumptions of Com-munication Accommodation Theory, in particular,assumptions relating to the processes of convergenceand divergence. Researchers have identified linguisticand cultural differences in regard to the frequency, type,and placement of backchannel responses. This paperexamines differences in American English and Germanbackchannel behaviour and investigates backchannelbehaviour in interactions between monolingual andbilingual Germans. Study 1 documents significant dif-ferences in the frequency and placement of backchannelresponses among monolingual German speakers andmonolingual American English speakers. Results showthat Germans produce fewer backchannel responsesand place these responses less frequently in overlappingpositions than American speakers do. Study 2 findsthat native Germans who have become equallyproficient in American English, when they speak toother native Germans in German, produce a highernumber of backchannel responses and more often inoverlapping positions than do monolingual Germans.This pragmatic transfer, for which some evidence existsin cross-linguistic studies, contradicts basic assump-tions of Communication Accommodation Theory.Implications of these findings for CommunicationAccommodation Theory, future research on backchan-nel responses, and pragmalinguistic research arediscussed.

04–662 Hinkel, Eli (Seattle U., USA; Email:[email protected]). Adverbial markers and tone

in L1 and L2 students’ writing. Journal ofPragmatics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 35, 7(2003), 1049–1068.

In the past several decades, analyses of large corporaof published written texts in English have allowed fornew insights into the meanings, uses, and functions ofadverbials of all types. However, far less is known aboutthe uses of adverbials in second language (L2) text.This paper presents a quantitative analysis of deictic,modifying, and intensifying adverbials, as well as severalsemantic classes of adverb clauses, and compares theirmedian frequency rates in academic essays writtenby first-year native speaker (NS) and academically-

advanced non-native speaker (NNS) students. Theanalysis focuses on NS and NNS uses of twelvesemantic and syntactic classes of adverbials. The greatestpronounced differences between the essays of NSs andthose of NNSs are identified in the frequency rates ofamplifiers and emphatic adverbs, both of which arevery common in informal conversations. The studyconcludes that because for most NNS academically-oriented learners, the greatest amount of exposureto L2 usage takes place in conversational discourse,the frequency rates of adverb clauses in L2 texts isdetermined by the frequency of a particular clause typein the conversational genre, i.e. the more commoncertain types of adverb clauses in conversationaldiscourse, the greater the likelihood of their highfrequency rates in L2 academic essays.

04–663 Mackie, Ardiss (Okanagan UniversityCollege, B.C., Canada). Race and desire: toward

critical literacies for ESL. TESL Canada Journal(Burnaby, B.C., Canada), 20, 2 (2003), 23–37.

This article examines the complexities of race andteaching identity and their coupling with desire. Theauthor contributes to a theory of critical literacies forESL by questioning the construction of whiteness asit relates to ESL. She draws on a cross-disciplinarybibliography of critical pedagogy, cultural, and feministstudies. She explores the use of film as a powerful sourceof identity formation for teachers. She suggests that aninteresting paradox in critical literacy is the simultaneousbreaking down of binary identities while continuingto offer up a socially transformative curriculum. Theauthor concludes that being colour-blind in theclassroom, where different colours are present, neglectsthe possibility of learning who we are.

04–664 MacPherson, Seonaigh (Manitoba U.,Canada). TESOL for biolinguistic sustainability:

the ecology of English as a Lingua Mundi . TESLCanada Journal (Burnaby, B.C., Canada), 20, 2(2003), 1–22.

This article examines biological and linguistic diversityand the implications for a biolinguistically sustainableapproach to TESOL. Drawing on interdisciplinarysources from bio-ecology and anthropology, the articleexamines the effect of the global spread of Englishas a lingua mundi in language shifts and extinctions.Consideration is given to how linguistic and biologicalexchanges are interrelated. Two hypothetical casesare introduced, drawn from the authors ethnographicexperience in the Indian Himalayas that demonstratehow the introduction of two English-languagediscourses can lead to biological, linguistic, andcultural loss. One case involved the introduction of acommercial-scientific forestry discourse in an Indianvillage, and the other the introduction of a psychiatrydiscourse in a Tibetan refugee Buddhist educationalinstitution. This is followed by a brief description of theactual cases as examples of sustainable biolinguistic (ESL)

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Sociolinguistics ■education. The conclusion considers how to promote:more responsible TESOL research and education; anunderstanding of how English can be introducedto support the survival of local and indigenouslanguages.

04–665 Marsh, Jackie (Sheffield U., UK).One-way traffic? Connections between literacy

practices at home and in the nursery. BritishEducational Research Journal (London, UK), 29, 3(2003), 369–382.

This article reports on a small-scale study whichexamined the home literacy practices of a group of 3and 4 year-old children in a working-class communityin the north of England and explored how far thesepractices were reflected in the curriculum of thenursery the children attended. The data, based onliteracy diaries completed by the families of 18 childrenover a period of 4 weeks, illustrate that there was adissonance between out-of-school and schooled literacypractices and that there was more evidence of nurseryliteracy practices infiltrating the home than vice versa.Children’s literacy practices in the home were focusedon media and popular cultural texts and the articleargues for greater recognition of these contemporarycultural practices in early years policy documentationand curriculum guidance. In addition, the articleargues for a corresponding need to respond to theever more complex forms of communicative practiceswhich are offered in a highly technologised society andin the multifaceted semiotic universe which childreninhabit.

04–666 Matthews, Mona W. and Kesner, John

(Georgia State U., USA). Children learning with

peers: the confluence of peer status and literacy

competence within small-group literacy events.Reading Research Quarterly (Newark, DE, USA),38, 2 (2003), 208–234.

This study investigated the interactions of 16 first-grade children during one academic year as theyparticipated in literacy events with their peers. Ofparticular interest was how children with differentlevels of acceptance from their peers and differentlevels of reading achievement experienced collaborativepeer-only literacy events. A sociocultural perspectiveguided the investigation. Constructs related to theindividual psychology of the children were alsoconsidered in order to gain insights into experiencesof individual children. Data included 138 hours ofclassroom observations, video and/or audiotapes ofthe children as they participated in collaborativeliteracy events, assessments of the children’s readingability, and assessments of the children’s acceptance bytheir peers. A constant comparative method guidedthe data analysis. The analysis suggests that issuesrelated to peer acceptance and reading competencecomplicate children’s interactions during collaborativeliteracy events. While interactions during these events

are a source of support for some, they may be asource of stress for others. Implications for classroomteachers, in particular the need to consider peer groupprocess as well as class outcomes, and for researchers,recommending more investigations of students’ statusamong their peers, are presented.

04–667 Spencer-Oatey, Helen and Jiang,

Wenying (UK eUniversities Worldwide, UK; Email:[email protected]). Explaining

cross-cultural pragmatic findings: moving from

politeness maxims to sociopragmatic

interactional principles (SIPs). Journal ofPragmatics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 35,10–11 (2003), 1633–1650.

This paper focuses on how culture can be treated as anexplanatory variable in cross-cultural pragmatic studies.It starts with a review of pragmatic maxims (Grice,1989), discussing the strengths and weaknesses of theconcept. It then presents the findings from a British-Chinese replication of Kim’s (1996) cross-cultural studyof conversational constraints, and argues that the notionof maxims should be reconceptualised as sociopragmaticinteractional principles (SIPs). The notion of SIPs isdefined and explained, referring to the sociopragmatic-pragmalinguistic distinction (Leech, 1983) and othercross-cultural pragmatic approaches (House, 2000). SIPsare also discussed in relation to Brown and Levinson’s(1987) perspectives on the impact of culture on languageuse. The paper ends with a call for more research toestablish on an empirical basis the types of interactionalprinciples that exist, and their interrelationships.

04–668 Zhu, Huimin (China). Globalization and

new ELT challenges in China. An account of the

teaching of English and the kinds of English

used in a vast, varied, and rapidly changing

society. English Today (Cambridge, UK), 19, 4(2003), 36–41.

As economics and trade turn the world into “a globalvillage”, English is playing an increasingly importantrole in China as a lingua franca for such matters asbusiness, information, international travel, the Internet,cultural entertainment, and the environment, all ofwhich have brought great changes in every aspect oflife. Native English speakers are regarded as linguisticallyprivileged, but such non-native English-speakers asthe Chinese, in order to overcome their disadvantage,are launching campaigns to enable themselves to useEnglish more accurately and fluently. ‘Communicativecompetence’ has become the chief goal of Englishlanguage learning and teaching. This essay seeksto analyse the great changes that are taking placeeducationally in China, especially in ELT, emphasizingthe importance of communicative language teaching(CLT), teacher training, reform of the examinationsystem, and raising people’s awareness of new challengesin education and life.

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■ Applied linguistics

Applied linguistics

04–669 Hardison, Debra M. (Michigan State U.,USA; Email: [email protected]). Acquisition of

second-language speech: effects of visual cues,

context, and talker variability. AppliedPsycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 24, 4 (2003),495–522.

The influence of a talker’s face (e.g., articulatorygestures) and voice, vocalic context, and word positionwere investigated in the training of Japanese and KoreanEnglish as a second language learners to identifyAmerican English /.i/and /l/. In the pretest-posttestdesign, an identification paradigm assessed the effects of3 weeks of training using multiple natural exemplarson videotape. Word position, adjacent vowel, andtraining type (auditory–visual [AV] vs. auditory only;multiple vs. single talker for Koreans) were independentvariables. Findings revealed significant effects of trainingtype (greater improvement with AV), talker, wordposition, and vowel. Identification accuracy generalizedsuccessfully to novel stimuli and a new talker. Transferto significant production improvement was also noted.These findings are compatible with episodic models forthe encoding of speech in memory.

04–670 Hirst, Elizabeth (Griffith U., Queensland,Australia; Email: [email protected]) Diverse

voices in a second language classroom:

burlesque, parody and mimicry. Language andEducation (Clevedon, UK), 17, 3 (2003), 174–191.

Competence has been theorised as the mastery of voicesthat are privileged within specific social contexts. Ananalysis of some classroom talk is used to show howstudents make humorous use of parody and mimicry toconstruct a complex social order and shifting strategicidentities. The study described here was based onlessons of Indonesian in a primary LOTE [LanguageOther Than English] classroom in Australia. It is furtherargued that the low status of teachers of Indonesianin a LOTE programme, which is due to a number ofadministrative and cultural factors, can be reinforced,probably unwittingly, by students using various formsof humour for the purposes of their own power playin a way that reflects the racial values of their society.A specific episode is analysed to illustrate how theapparently idle chatter between children reveals that thistalk does serious social work.

04–671 Matsumura, Shoichi (Ryukoku U.,Japan). Modelling the relationships among

interlanguage pragmatic development, L2

proficiency, and exposure to L2. AppliedLinguistics (Oxford, UK), 24, 4 (2003), 465–491.

This study aimed to account for the different levelsof pragmatic development among 137 university-levelJapanese learners of English, as functions of theirvarying levels of English proficiency and amount ofexposure to English. Their pragmatic developmentwas assessed by the degree of approximation to nativespeech act behaviour in various advice-giving situationsrepeated during the course of an academic year.Unique to this study in interlanguage pragmaticswas the use of structural equation modelling (SEM),which permits formulation and comparisons of severalcompeting causal models. Although the results revealedthe persistent effect of pragmatic competence on itselfover the duration of the study, they also suggested thatamount of exposure had greater potential to accountfor pragmatic development than level of proficiency.The author suggests that further studies examining thevarious patterns of cause-effect relationships amongthe variables pragmatic development, exposure andproficiency may be of value.

04–672 de Mattos Pimenta Parente, Maria

Alice and Geiger, Lucienne (Rio Grande do SulFederal U., Brazil) and Dunbar, Harriet and

Nespoulous, Jean-Luc. The role of phonological

loop components on children’s story recall

during the first years of schooling. Revue Parole(Mons, Belgium), 25/26 (2003), 45–74.

It is well documented that working-memory improvestill the age of 12 and that, about the age of 7,important shifts occur due to the use of the “subvocalrehearsal strategy”. The purpose of this study is toverify if a link exists between these shifts and therecall of different narrative structures (macrostructureand details) by children during schooling. A total of 45children, aged from 6 to 12, participated in this study.All children were submitted to three word-repetitionseries and to a story recall task. Results showed adouble dissociation between preliterate children andfluent readers. In the first group, the magnitude of thelength effect was a predictor of macrostructure recall butnot of the recall of details. On the contrary, in the lattergroup, the length effect was a predictor of details butnot of the macrostructure. These results suggest that, inearly ages, the “phonological loop” resources maintainthe macrostructure but only later, the details of astory.

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