This thesis has analyzed syntactical errors made in written English by Brazilian-Portuguese-speaking students of English as a foreign language. The errors were analyzed and explained so as to determine whether the students use their native competence in Portuguese or their transitional competence in English in their hypothesizing in the target language. In case they use the former, their performance in the target language most likely shows a great deal of native language interference; in case they use the latter, their errors are mostly based on overgeneralizations, false analogies within English itself, or are caused by insufficient knowledge of the rule system of English, or by simple carelessness.By means f this careful analysis the investigator supported, at least partially, the hypothesis that native language interference, while an important cause, is not the sole cause of error in foreign-language performance, since approximately 57% of the errors were due to the interference of the mother tongue.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe several aspects of English as a second language (ESL) note-taking in response to lectures. The objective of this study was to analyze note-taking production. In addition, the study had hoped to trace note-taking progress as it correlated with language proficiency progress, but due to circumstances beyond the control of the researcher this idea had to be abandoned. Instead, the study focused on the first six weeks of a learner's academic semester in the target language.The researcher observed twenty students in order to obtain insights into the note-taking production of low ESL students in response to lectures. The methods used were: class observation, notebook collection, a two-part questionnaire, and a follow-up questionnaire. It was found that in the first six weeks of academic study, this group of low ESL students had difficulty taking notes due, largely, to language proficiency problems, such as the rate of delivery. Other reasons why the students had difficulties taking notes included their lack of formal training in note-taking and the fact that they were not using special strategies and skills. Thus, all this study can say about note-taking in second language acquisition is that it is difficult for low ESL students. / Department of English

This thesis has dealt with reading comprehension problems of nonnative speakers of English as determined by an analysis of responses to a cloze test. Because it has been proven to be sound both theoretically and empirically for use in determining reading comprehension problems of non-native speakers, a cloze test was administered to two classes of students at Ball State University who were studying English as a second language. The study was a descriptive one in which responses to the test were first categorized and then analyzed to determine possible reasons for errors.Results of the study indicated that these respondents approached the cloze task at the syntactic level. They were able to respond acceptably when the blank to be filled occurred in a syntactic structure that they were familiar with. The large number of clearly incorrect responses indicated that the test was probably too difficult for them. However, an analysis of the errors proved useful in determining the most prevalent kinds of errors and in examining the syntactic structures which caused the most problems for these respondents. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for the respondents in this study and implications for future research.

This creative project consists of a course syllabus and materials based on the functional approach. It was designed for students of English at Universidade Federal do Para in Brazil.The first chapter is about the teaching-learning situation where the syllabus will be applied; the second chapter is the proposed syllabus; the third chapter consists of the teacher's manual; and the fourth chapter is the students' book.

The purpose of this study was to show the inadequacy of preparation of prospective teachers of English in composition, trace the historical background of the present situation, and provide model curricula to remedy the inadequacy.The inadequacy in composition in English preparatory programs was established in Chapter I by citing results of studies conducted by leaders of the profession and by major professional organizations such as The National Council of Teachers of English and the Modern Language Association. These results, which apply equally to teachers in public schools and colleges, show that few teachers are prepared properly to teach writing in any mode and are the consequences of preparatory programs in which writing and methods to teach it have been neglected in favor of an almost total literature orientation.Chapter II, The Historical Background of the Present Situation, shows the growth of the three agencies responsible for preparing an English teacher to enter the classroom—the college English and Education departments and the State Department of Education. The independent development and different life styles of the three agencies were traced from their origins in Europe, through the expansion of public education in the post-Civil War era to their twentieth century inter-relationship on college campuses in preparatory programs. The expansion of education following World War II increased requirements for credentials of public school teachers to four years of college, but the Ph.D. in literature remained the credential for teaching English in colleges and universities. Therefore, the college programs for English majors and minors maintained their literature orientation even though it is axiomatic that all English teachers must teach composition for a substantial portion of their professional life. Few prospective teachers receive instruction in writing beyond the freshman composition requirement and techniques for teaching writing are seldom incorporated into methods courses. The only remedy, therefore, is to offer model curricula that balance writing and the study of literature in the preparatory program.Two model curricula are based on assumptions that prospective English teachers can learn to write and teach writing given sufficient instruction; that, if they are taught a balanced program, English teachers will teach a balanced program; that finding faculty to teach writing courses in the model curricula will be difficult at first, but there are a few qualified people on every campus and a national program of internships can be established to provide additional faculty until graduates of the new program are available; and that a psychological orientation is vital to the Cluster Curriculum, one of the model curricula.The two model curricula are the Cluster Curriculum and the English Adjunct Curriculum. The structure of the former is based upon a nucleus of Psychological Development Sessions around which are clustered both subject and pedagogical experiences, thereby balancing writing, literature study, methods to teach both, and opportunities to work within the school system from the start of professional education.Because the Cluster Curriculum is based upon cultural changes, the English Adjunct Curriculum is suggested as a forerunner while the necessary changes take place. The English Adjunct Curriculum can be attached to the current program of English studies by requiring a Writing Adjunct to general studies courses in freshman and sophomore college years, and Writing Adjuncts to literature courses in junior and senior years of English programs. In addition, the English major and minor will be required to enroll in one course in how to teach composition per academic year. To accommodate increased writing requirements, changes in literature requirements are suggested.

This study investigated the effectiveness of four vocabulary learning tasks on 104 Saudi EFL learners' retention of ten previously unencountered lexical items. These four tasks were: 1) writing original sentences (WS), 2) writing an original text (i.e. composition) (WT), 3) filling-in-the-blank of single sentences (FS), and 4) filling-in-the-lank of a text (FT). Different results were obtained depending on whether the amount of time required by these tasks was considered in the analysis or not. When time was not considered in the analysis, the WT group outperformed the other groups while the FS group obtained the lowest score. No significant differences were found between WS and FT. The picture, however, changed dramatically when time was considered in the analysis. The analysis of ratio of score to time taken revealed no significant differences between the four groups except between FT and FS, and it was in favor of FT. The differences in vocabulary gains between the four groups were ascribed to the level (or depth) of processing these tasks required the subjects to do and to the richness of the context available in two of the four exercises, namely WT and FT. The researcher concluded that composition writing was the most helpful task for vocabulary retention and also for general language learning, followed by FT. Sentence fill-in was considered the least useful activity in this regard. / Department of English

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of English

The purpose of this research was to analyze the status of the English auxiliary system in the verb phrases of the writing of a selected group of sixth grade children to determine whether there would be measurable differences between the incorporation and comprehension of verb phrase expansions of children taught generative-transformational theory and those taught traditional theory.The research was designed to answer four questions relevant to the effects of the experimental treatment on the writing productivity of the subjects in the study. I collected writing samples from the subjects for pre-test and post-test evaluation. The first 100 verb forms collected from the subjects' pre-test and post-test writing were analyzed for changes in the subjects' use of expanded verb forms. The purpose of this analysis was to determine if the experimental subjects utilized fewer simple verb forms and more expanded verb forms in their post-test sampling.The sampling consisted of fifteen Caucasians and six Blacks in each group for a total of forty-two subjects. The subjects were students attending the Henry Barnard School which serves as the laboratory setting for Rhode Island College. The groups were equalized in terms of I.Q. and language achievement. While I collected the post-test data, the experimental subjects studied generative-transformational methods of verb phrase expansions and the control subjects studied traditional methods of verb phrase expansions.The data were analyzed by means of a two-way factorial analysis which computed the statistical differences for the experimental (Black-Caucasian)/control (Black-Caucasian), pre-test, post-test variables. In order to determine statistically significant differences for the groups, t-scores and f-scores were analyzed. The following conclusions were drawn from the statistical findings.Although none of the statistical summaries were significant at the .05 level, the experimental subjects showed more gains in their use of expanded verb forms in their posttest writing than the control group showed. Among the experimental subjects who made gains in their use of expanded verb forms, the Black population made the greatest gains. The most complex verb forms did not appear in the post-test sampling of either group. These complex forms seemed to be beyond the written linguistic productivity of sixth-grade children.

Traditional Japanese learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are taught to respond to negative questions (e.g. Do you not like English?) with yes for positive answers (e.g. Yes, I do) and no for negative answers (e.g. No, I don't). However, this is subject to variation in native speaker usage. This study aimed to determine the conditions under which native English speakers actually respond to negative questions with yes vs. no, and to compare the usage with that of Japanese EFL learners. To this end, 22 native English speakers and 22 Japanese students were individually shown 21 TV and movie video clips containing negative questions of varied form and discourse function. After each clip, the subjects were asked to imagine whether the addressee in the video would respond with yes or no, and to fill in the blank accordingly on an answer sheet. Contrary to the traditional EFL rule, variation was found when negative questions conveyed a negative assumption, and when the pragmatic functions were 1) testing a new negative assumption or 2) seeking agreement on a negative assumption. The results also indicate that no to disagree with a negative assumption was much more common than yes to agree with a negative assumption. The Japanese group's answers followed the EFL rule significantly more often than the American group's on the same video task. This indicates that knowing the EEL rule influenced the Japanese group's performance and contributed to the gap between the two groups. Except for one instance of possible negative influence from the cross-cultural differences in politeness norms, the Japanese group showed variation from the EFL rule only where the American group did. Finally, high-advanced subjects and/or those residing in the U.S. over four years, sometimes departed from the traditional EFL rule in favor of more natural English usage. I conclude that this cannot be attributed to native language influence. / Department of English

This thesis has included (1) a course of study in English, (2) a presentation of departmental policies and procedures peculiar to Delta High School, and (3) a survey of departmental problems and their resolutions. All have emerged as a result of school consolidation in 1967 (Delaware County: Royerton, DeSoto, Eaton, and Albany) Included in the work is a compilation of results which have required hundreds of hours of "unseen labor."The decisions, ideas, suggestions, plans, and projects described in the thesis are representative of the entire English Department at Delta High School.The total program and curriculum guide have been set up to meet the needs of the school at the present time and yet viewed and planned s o that the move into the new physical plant will not be a sudden, disrupting change, but rather a smooth transition.