Abstract: This study investigated the links between second language classroom anxiety and second language writing anxiety as well as their associations with second language speaking and writing achievement. The results indicate that second language classroom anxiety, operationalized by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and second language writing anxiety, measured by a modified second language version of Daly and Miller's Writing Apprehension Test, are two related but independent constructs. The findings suggest that second language classroom anxiety is a more general type of anxietyabout learning a second language with a strong speaking anxiety element, whereas second language writing anxiety is a language-skill-specific anxiety. Nevertheless, low self-confidence seems to be an important component of both anxiety constructs.

Abstract: Whereas most discussions of foreign language (FL) anxiety have centered on the difficulties caused by anxiety with respect to oral performance, this article discusses the possibility of anxiety in response to foreign or second language reading. It introduces the construct of FL reading anxiety, offers a scale for its measurement, and reports on a preliminary study of reading anxiety in 30 intact first-semester classes of Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. The study found that contrary to previous teacher intuitions, reading in a FL can be anxiety provoking to some students. Whereas general FL anxiety has been found to be independent of target language, levels of reading anxiety were found to vary by target language and seem to be related to the specific writing systems. In addition, students’ reading anxiety levels increased with their perceptions of the difficulty of reading in their FL, and their grades decreased in conjunction with their levels of reading anxiety and general FL anxiety.

Abstract: Foreign language anxiety is a complex phenomenon that has been found to be a predictor of foreign language achievement. This study of 210 university students examined factors that predict 1 foreign language anxiety. A setwise multiple regression analysis revealed that seven variables (i.e., age, academic achievement, prior history of visiting foreign countries, prior high school experience with foreign languages, expected overall average for current language course, perceived scholastic competence, and perceived self-worth) contributed significantly to the prediction of foreign language anxiety. An analysis of variance, which included trend analysis, revealed that freshmen and sophomores reported the lowest levels of foreign language anxiety, and that anxiety levels increased linearly as a function of year of study. The educational implications of these findings for understanding foreign language anxiety and for increasing foreign language learning are discussed, as are suggestions for future research.

Abstract: Subtitled television programs seem to provide a rich context for foreign language acquisition. Moreover, viewers are generally quite motivated to understand what is shown and said on television. The present study investigated whether children in Grades 4 and 6 (N = 246) learn English words through watching a television program with an English soundtrack and Dutch subtitles. Children were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (a) watching an English television program with Dutch subtitles, (b) watching the same English program without subtitles, and (c) watching a Dutch television program (control). The study was carried out using a 15-min documentary about grizzly bears. Vocabulary acquisition and recognition of English words were highest in the subtitled condition, indicating that Dutch elementary school children can incidentally acquire vocabulary in a foreign language through watching subtitled television programs.

Abstract: The aim of this article is to report on a study that documented the views and practices of communicative language teaching (CLT) by Japanese second language inservice teachers. Compared to theoretical developments of CLT (e.g., see Savignon, 1991), little is known about what second language teachers actually understand by CLT and how they implement CLT in classrooms. Using multiple data sources including interviews, observations, and surveys, the article reports how teachers defined CLT and implemented it in their classrooms. The study identified how teachers actually dealt with CLT in their classrooms teaching Japanese. It is interesting to note that their views and actions dealt little with the academic literature pertaining to CLT or their education (be it preservice or inservice) in learning about CLT. Instead, teachers resorted to their personal ideas and experiences, solidifying their notions of foreign language (L2) teaching in further pursuing their evolving conceptions of CLT.

Abstract: Every secondary school pupil studies modern foreign languages as part of the curriculum, and some do so with considerably more success than others. This book looks firstly at the ways in which languages can be taught, and secondly at case studies that highlight the practical methods that will help teachers get the best results. The case studies included show that the best learners are those who have developed learning strategies that help them succeed. These learning strategies are examined through practical examples carried out in classrooms, and advice is given about ways in which teachers can ensure that all their pupils have the opportunity to develop these skills. Lots of suggestions are made about the various activities teachers can carry out in order to make learning enjoyable and positive. In some cases, the results are shown to be very encouraging and any language teacher should be left with a feeling not only of renewed enthusiasm for their subject area but also a deeper understanding of how to enable learners to reach their full potential.

Abstract: There are clear differences in acquisition and developmental patterns between conversational language and academic language, or BICS (basic interpersonal communicative skills) and CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency). The conceptual distinction between these two levels highlights misconceptions about the nature of language proficiency which contributes to academic failure among bilingual students. Differences in the rate of acquisition of the two levels needs to be considered so that the academic language education of bilingual children with good conversational English ability does not suffer. An instructional program for bilingual students should address: (1) cognitive skills; (2) academic content; and (3) critical language awareness. (EF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) fg This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

Abstract: This study examines the performance of Hungarian secondary school students on two types of unscripted task - an argument task and a narrative task. It focuses on grammatical patterns of learner language, and reports significant differences in the learners’ performance. The article discusses implications for the use and design of such tasks. It concludes by suggesting how their use can contribute to language development by leading learners to establish a routinized relationship between task and language. More generally, the article argues the value of predicting, on the basis of attested patterns of use, the classroom learning that is likely to ensue from the use of particular tasks.

Abstract: In this article I will discuss the possible use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) for training students to improve their accents in a foreign language. Principles of good language training as well as the limits of the use of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and how to deal with them will be discussed first. I will then use the example of the Carnegie Mellon FLUENCY system to show concretely how such a system may function. Prosody training as well as phonetics will be emphasized. Finally, I will underscore the importance of having a system that adapts to the user, again using the FLUENCY system as an example.

Abstract: Section headings and selected papers: Introduction to the Field. General introduction: the field of educational linguistics (B. Spolsky). The social context. Society. Socialization (C.B. Cazden). National Policy: National Language Policy and Education. Indian language education policy (Bh. Krishnamurti). Language education policy--Africa (S.G.M. Ridge). National language policy and education (R.D. Lambert). Literacy and Oracy. Literacy (C.J. Daswani). The Home--School Language Gap. Educational failure (J.R. Edwards). The Individual Learner. Language Acquisition. Becoming bilingual (C. Letts). Challenged Learners. The blind child (M. Garman). Second Language Processing. Age in second language learning (T. Scovel). The School Context. School and Classroom. Language across the curriculum (D.J. Corson). Dictionaries. Prescription in dictionaries (L.C. Mugglestone). Electronic Age. Computer-assisted language learning (J.D. Fox). Teaching Language. National Curricula. English teaching in England and Wales (R. Carter). Grammar in Mother Tongue Teaching. Grammar in British schools (A.M. Philp). Reading in the Mother Tongue. Reading difficulties (M.J. Snowling). Spelling in the Mother Tongue. Spelling: learning (N. Goulandris). Writing in the Mother Tongue. Writing in school (J. Harris). Teaching Additional Languages. Second and Foreign Language Learning. Language for special purposes (A. Johns). SLA (Second Language Acquisition). Lexis: acquisition (P. Meara). Second and Foreign Language Pedagogy. Pronunciation (D. Porter). Testing. Language testing (B. Spolsky). The Profession. Insitutions. Journals (V. Valdman). People. Ascham, Roger (1515--68) (A.P.R. Howatt). Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood (1925-- ) (J. Fine). Nickel, Gerhard (1928-- ) (K. Sajavaara). Swain, Merrill K. (1944--

Abstract: Twenty-five years ago, Language Awareness (LA) was put forward, primarily by modern linguists, as a new 'bridging' element in the UK school curriculum. It was viewed as a solution to several of the failures in UK schools: illiteracy in English, failure to learn foreign languages, and divisive prejudices. The intervening years have inevitably seen a number of developments that cause us to reflect further on the need for foreign language teachers and other teachers to cooperate. Three relevant issues are discussed here. Firstly, natural approaches to foreign language learning, bolstered by the Chomskyan notion of the Language Acquisition Device, prompted a taboo during the 1970s and 1980s on formal language instruction and talk about language. Secondly, the recent emphasis on foreign languages as useful skills rather than part of education has also led attention away from the wider value of awareness. Thirdly, the fact that UK university students are choosing more and more to pursue a different foreign lang...

Abstract: This book reports the results of an extensive study of slips of the tongue produced by foreign language (L2) learners at different levels of proficiency. Thus, it provides new data which can be used to test current monolingual models of speech production and to further the development of bilingual speech production models. Moreover, it offers a new approach to the study of second language acquisition. The book contains a detailed survey of the findings of L1 slip research, including studies of slips produced by child L1 learners. It systematically compares these findings to those of the current L2 study and relates them to recent monolingual and bilingual models of speech production and to several cognitive models of second language acquisition. Special features of the book are its emphasis on methodological problems and the inclusion of the complete L2 corpus of 2000 slips of the tongue. It is expected that the book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in the areas of speech production and second language acquisition, and particularly to those who would like to test their own hypotheses using the L2 data.Summary of the contents of the book. The book provides an overview of the key findings in L1 slip research. It relates L1 findings to monolingual speech production models. It gives a detailed survey of studies of slips produced by children. It presents an up-to-date review of bilingual speech production models. It discusses recent cognitive models of second language acquisition. It gives a detailed description of an extensive research project on slips of the tongue produced by Dutch learners of English. The L2 slip corpus is tape-recorded. It discusses methodological problems in L1 slip research. It systematically compares the L1 findings to those of the L2 slip project. It relates the findings to monolingual and bilingual models of speech production and to cognitive models of second language acquisition. It makes the data available in the appendix.

Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine, with a longitudinal study design, the effects of phonological memory and native language (NL) literacy acquisition on learning English as a foreign language (FL). The subjects were 160 Finnish school children, who were 7-year-old first graders at the beginning of the study. Measures in the first grade were NL word recognition and listening comprehension; in the second grade, word recognition, reading comprehension, and phonological memory; and in the third grade, FL skills. The main result from the structural equation modeling was that both NL literacy and phonological memory have positive effects on FL learning. These skills explained 58% of the variance in English proficiency. Therefore, proficiency in NL literacy skills is highly significant for FL learning, although the orthographic regularity varied a lot (Finnish vs. English). On the basis of the results, it can be concluded that one way to promote FL learning is by diagnosing NL literacy skills early on and by providing training in NL literacy for at-risk children. In addition, the significant role of phonological memory in FL learning suggests that training in the FL phonology may enhance competence in the foreign language.

Abstract: This paper presents research based on discourse analysis of seven extempore simulated consultations between practicing General Medical Practitioners and non-English speaking volunteer patients, with language-switching provided by educated but professionally untrained native speakers of the foreign language. The research set out to examine how information is lost to both doctor and patient in the language-switching process. The results highlight the importance of appropriate interlocutor roles being occupied by all parties, as well as the dangers inherent in a lack of common ground within the transaction. The language pair used in the data is English-Spanish, but the results are discussed as applicable by extrapolation to any language pair. The findings highlight the risks to all parties of dysfunctional communications across language and culture. Cross-language communication is shown to be complex, and highly trained doctors’ skills blunted by malfunctions in language-switching. Information is los...

Abstract: The use of multimedia technology to teach language in its authentic cultural context represents a double challenge for language learners and teachers. On the one hand, the computer gives learners access to authentic video footage and other cultural materials that can help them get a sense of the sociocultural context in which the language is used. On the other hand, CD-ROM multimedia textualizes this context in ways that need to be "read" and interpreted. Learners are thus faced with the double task of (a) observing and choosing culturally relevant features of the context and (b) putting linguistic features in relation to other features to arrive at some understanding of language in use. This paper analyzes the interaction of text and context in a multimedia Quechua language program, and makes suggestions for teaching foreign languages through multimedia technology.

Abstract: Previous research on adults has demonstrated incidental foreign-language acquisition by watching subtitled television programs in a foreign language. Based on these findings and the literature about the sensitive period for language acquisition, we expected the acquisition to be larger with children. A short subtitled cartoon was presented to Dutch-speaking children (8–12 years old). We varied the channel in which the foreign and native languages were presented (sound track and subtitles); we also looked at the effects of the existing knowledge of the foreign language (due to formal teaching at school) and the linguistic similarity between the native and the foreign language (using Danish and French as foreign languages). We obtained real but limited foreign-language acquisition and in contrast to the sensitive language-acquisition hypothesis, the learning of the children was not superior to that of adults investigated in prior studies. The acquisition here does not profit from the more formal language learning at school. Contrary to the adults, the children tend to acquire more when the foreign language is in the sound track than in the subtitles.

Abstract: Although code-switching has attracted a considerable amount of attention for quite some time, the issue of linguistic switch in foreign language teaching has not been a major subject of scientific study. Using a qualitative approach to individual examples of linguistic switch among three second language teachers of French in Sweden, this article, although highly preliminary, attempts to highlight and explain some of the features of code-switching in the foreign language classroom.

Abstract: We are interested in automatically detecting specific phone segments that have been mispronounced by a nonnative student of a foreign language. The phone-level information allows a language instruction system to provide the student with feedback about specific pronunciation mistakes. Two approaches were evaluated; in the first approach, log-posterior probability-based scores [1] are computed for each phone segment. These probabilities are based on acoustic models of native speech. The second approach uses a phonetically labeled nonnative speech database to train two different acoustic models for each phone: one model is trained with the acceptable, or correct native-like pronunciations, while the other model is trained with the incorrect, strongly nonnative pronunciations. For each phone segment, a log-likelihood ratio score is computed using the incorrect and correct pronunciation models. Either type of score is compared with a phone dependent threshold to detect a mispronunciation. Performance of both approaches was evaluated in a phonetically transcribed database of 130,000 phones uttered in continuous speech sentences by 206 nonnative speakers.

Abstract: There has been a remarkable neglect of instructed foreign languages in sociolinguistics, and this can be attributed to a traditionally ‘reflectionist’ view of the relationship between language and social structure, to a preoccupation with the home-school interface, and to the dominance of what Bernstein (1996) calls the ‘social logic of competence’. In combination, these concerns provide little scope for seeing how the value and social indexicality of a school foreign language (FL) might be reshaped within the micropolitics of classroom interaction, or how an FL might serve as a significant resource in the maintenance and accumulation of vernacular prestige. More recent conceptual developments, however, make processes like these more visible, and this is illustrated in an analysis of the impromptu use of German among adolescents in a multilingual school in inner London, where the aesthetics of performance (in R. Bauman's sense) play a significant role, both in the negotiation of identities and in the repositioning of an official code at school.

Abstract: This report presents the results of the first stage of an on-going curriculum development project aimed at creating performance based tests for the first and second year Japanese language courses at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. That first stage is a needs analysis of the learning needs of first and second year Japanese language students as perceived by the students and their teachers. This introductory section will lay the groundwork by discussing a number of relevant issues including the following: (a) the community background (including the vitality of the Japanese in Hawai‘i), (b) the Japanese Language Program and the students at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, and (c) a literature review on needs analysis (including subsections on needs analysis in general education, needs analysis in ESL curriculum development, and needs analysis in Japanese curriculum development).

Abstract: Many foreign words and English words appear in Korean texts, especially in the areas of science and engineering We recognize two issues related to foreign words, which should be addressed for information retrieval (IR) First, since foreign words are introduced dynamically and not always found in a dictionary, they cause problems in morphological analysis required for indexing Second, although a foreign word and its origin in the source language like English refer to the same concept, they are erroneously treated as independent index terms As a way of alleviating the first problem we developed an algorithm that first identifies a phrase containing a foreign word and then extracts the foreign word part from the phrase based on statistical information For the second problem, we present our method for back-transliteration of a foreign word to its English origin Finally we report our evaluation results for each of the algorithms and experimental results for their impact on IR effectiveness

Abstract: Access to the emerging global language—widely perceived as a language of opportunity—needs to be guaranteed (Crystal, 1997, p 220)

Abstract: Over the last decade or so, rating scales describing different levels of language proficiency or achievement have been widely adopted in language learning programs throughout the world as a means of assessing individual learner attainment and reporting program outcomes. Such scales have tended to be of two main types. The first type of scale is behaviourally based and is exemplified by instruments such as the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Proficiency Guidelines (ACTFL 1986), which seek to define language ability globally in terms of features of “real-life” performance and thus describe specific contexts of language use. Although behavioural scales have generally met with widespread acceptance within the language teaching fraternity, their theoretical foundations have been questioned (e.g., Bachman & Savignon 1986; Lantolf & Frawley 1988). Their validity as indicators of language ability has also been challenged on the basis that the scales fail to distinguish between the ability being assessed and the elicitation procedures used, thus limiting the generalizability of score interpretation (Bachman 1990). Their usefulness for diagnostic and achievement testing has also been questioned, in that they fail to provide specific information on different components of language ability (Bachman 8c Palmer 1996). As a result, proposals have been put forward for a second type of rating scale, one that is defined independently of content and context, that is derived from a theoretical model of the ability construct being assessed, and that provides analytic ratings of the various components of language ability that may be of interest to stake holders (Bachman 1988,1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996).

Abstract: This paper is based on ongoing research on a recent low-dose, late partial English immersion (IM) program in Germany. The evaluation compares English language outcomes of IM groups, groups from non-IM schools, and non-IM groups from the same school as the IM groups, at various points of their development. This paper focuses on whether English vocabulary learning occurs incidentally while students are learning history or geography, or both, taught in English and whether there is evidence to suggest that the learning abilities activated in the IM classroom are the same as those found in traditional foreign language teaching and in naturalistic (untutored) L2 acquisition. The data derive from a communicative group test. It is shown that some of the lexical items cannot have come from the textbook or from other kinds of teaching materials used during regular foreign language instruction in the program. This leaves the teacher's oral use of English as the most likely source. Several implications for L2 acquisition theory and teaching practice are discussed.

Abstract: This paper will examine some key principles of Critical Language Awareness with reference to a class on Critical Reading which was taught to advanced foreign language learners. The paper will argue that CLA needs to be located within Critical Pedagogy, and that Critical Pedagogy is typically conceptualised around three major principles. They are, respectively, teaching as emancipatory, difference-orientated and oppositional. Some applications and implications of these principles will then be questioned on the grounds that they, first, position Critical Pedagogy as a marginalised project; second, that they overstate the importance of a confrontational stance to establishment discourse. The final part of the paper will examine the extent to which the rationale of the Critical Reading course addressed the need to develop a different understanding of critical pedagogy: one which values commonality rather than difference and resistance rather than opposition and which aims to bring Critical Pedagogy into the m...