Reflects on what has transpired in the second language (L2) testing field in relation to technology and situates developments within the larger language testing, general measurement, and educational contexts. (Author/VWL)

Responds to an article on computerized adaptive second language (L2) testing, expressing concerns about the appropriateness of such tests for informing language educators about the language skills of L2 learners and users and fulfilling the intended purposes and achieving the desired consequences of language test use.The authors of the original…

Clarifies the confusing terms "genre,""text type,""domain,""sublanguage," and "style" in an attempt to help individuals navigate the British National Corpus. (Author/VWL)

Responds to an earlier article that sought to clarify the terms "genre,""text type,""domain,""sublanguage," and "style" in an attempt to help individuals navigate the British National Corpus. (Author/VWL)

Reports on experiences using the Contemporary Written Italian Corpus in teaching intermediate students at Griffith University in Australia. Evaluates the effectiveness of students' investigations of the corpus, how they go about their investigations, and how successful they are at extracting information without help from a teacher. Outlines…

Presents a classification scheme and the results of applying this scheme to the coding of academic texts in a corpus. The texts are doctoral theses from agricultural botany and agricultural economics departments. Results lead to a comparison of the citation practices of writers in different disciplines and the different rhetorical practices of…

Outlines a way of dealing with vocabulary in English for academic purposes instruction in light of insights provided by empirical observation. Focusing on collocation in the context of English for special purposes (ESP), and more specifically, English for information science and technology, shows how the results of the contrastive study of lexical…

Presents an analysis of German modal particles based on corpora representing Spoken German. The concept of spoken language is discussed with regard to the corpora analyzed and narrowed down in relation to the use of modal particles. In addition, a collection of telephone conversations was scanned into a computer readable file and analyzed using…

Uses the concept of "emergent texture" to analyze the corpus behavior of the four nominal demonstratives--"this,""that,""these," an "those"--in an interlanguage corpus created at Yonsei University in Korea in 1999. Investigates a corpus of 109 single paragraphs. The concept of markedness is emphasized as a way of mediating the debate over the…

Investigates the value of computer technology as a medium for the delivery of parallel texts in English and Chinese for language learning. A English-Chinese parallel corpus was created for use in parallel concordancing--a technique that has been developed to respond to the desire to study language in its natural contexts of use. (Author/VWL)

Discusses a pilot study that sought to determine whether a parallel corpus and a concordancer would be appropriate tools to supplement a teaching program of German at the beginner level in an unsupervised environment. (Author/VWL)

Studied use of the Internet, Compact discs (CD), and email on the feasibility of conducting Russian language maintenance and development in a distance learning mode. Students from Air Force bases were guided by a native Russian moderator and interacted with each other in five-person teams. CD and email were found to be very reliable; Internet…

Outlines challenges that arose in the course of a classroom-based research project, identifies the realities of the second language setting that contributed to these complexities, and examines useful sources of support available to novice investigators. Oral communication tasks were administered to three groups of English learners in Canada: a…

Examines whether instruction can facilitate second language acquisition (SLA). Considers studies investigating the effects of instruction on the rate and ultimate level of attainment of SLA as well as on the route of development of acquisition. Explores implications for classroom teaching in the area of syllabus design, teaching materials,…

Examines whether there is a strong relationship between second language learners' noticing of benefactive auxiliary verbs and their use in communication. Participants were university students who had acquired Japanese at home without receiving any formal instruction. Data were collected in face-to-face interviews, an interpretation task with 20…