The present study is based on the theoretical assumptions that frequency of characters and their structural components, as well as the frequency types of structural components, are important to enable learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) to discover the underlying structure of Chinese characters. In the CFL context, since reliable target language input is limited largely to textbook materials and teacher instruction, it is important to more rigorously examine the inventory of Chinese characters that is typically presented in CFL textbooks. The purpose of this study was to systematically describe and classify Chinese characters from ten CFL textbooks designed for college and adult beginning learners. The main focus was to compare the textbooks in the following areas: explicit orthographic decomposition instruction, character frequency selection, radical combination frequency, radical semantic transparency, radical positional regularity among different character graphic structures, phonetic element reliability, and phonetic component combination frequency. To accomplish the analysis required for this study, a special character database was created. Dictionaries were used to classify character characteristics, and documented frequency lists were used to classify the character usage frequency. The findings revealed that most textbooks rarely include explicit orthographic decomposition instruction in the vocabulary lists or lessons, while over 40% of the characters in most of the textbooks did not combine with other characters to form words. In addition, analysis of frequency lists created over time revealed that the ten textbooks generally contain many high frequency characters. Furthermore, the results indicated that 60% of the characters in the database were classified by relatively few radicals (17%), with most radicals appearing on the left side of the characters. Relatively reliable phonetic analogy groups appeared frequently. About half of the characters are semantic-phonetic compound characters. Less than 10% of the characters in the textbooks are semantic-phonetic compound characters that contain semantically transparent radicals and reliable phonetic elements. The results of the study suggest that textbook writers should consider integrating orthographic decomposition and component frequency materials into their textbooks, as systematic instruction in textbooks is generally lacking. Teachers should also be mindful of emphasizing the high frequency characters that are consistently featured in all textbooks, as well as the frequently appearing radicals and left-right internal structure of many of the characters. In this way, students will early on develop a firm foundation of the principles governing Chinese orthography.

Abstract not available

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

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Teaching and learning foreign languages has always been a source of debate. This research begins by tracing the evolution of teaching methods and approaches. It proceeds to describe how the teaching and learning of Standard Italian at the post-secondary level and in adult education in Montreal is affected by the multicultural nature of the community. The analysis of individual textbooks used in post-secondary and adult instruction in Montreal and the surrounding area follows. This study should provide an impetus for further investigation regarding the relationship between foreign language acquisition and the choice of textbooks for classroom use and it could provide solutions for some of the pedagogical problems arising from Montreal's linguistic plurality.

There is an urgent necessity for good ESP textbooks. There are not too many around, and the few in existence appear very inadequate. Most of the time, ESL textbook writers feel that they should provide a basic framework and expect the classroom teacher to build lesson plans around it while adapting the material to suit the needs of a particular class. Writing a good textbook is a formidable and time consuming task. This creative project is a descrption of an ESP textbook. It sets out to provide a set of methodological guidelines and a number of teaching techniques to be used by the classroom teacher in dealing with a lesson. It discusses the four basic activities of language learning: listening, speaking, reading and writing and how to approach them as a way to stress oral and written communication in the target language. Communicative competence is taken to be the objective of language teaching: the preparation of speakers competent to communicate in the target language. Communicative competence includes not only the linguistic forms of a language, but also the knowledge of when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms. With this premise in mind this work sets out to discuss how to teach dialogues, structural patterns, pronunciation, reading and writing, all basic components of a typical language lesson. To wrap up the project, a typical ESP lesson on Tourism is included. Its organization is consistent with the methodological guidelines discusses earlier, it uses the techniques discussed in the main body of the work and represents a sensible approach to language learning.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Reading comprehension in English as a second language in the context of Iranian education system is not unproblematic. Hardly any studies have been attempted to investigate reading strategies and processes employed by novice and skilled readers through an on-line method of reading skills research in this context. The present study was thus undertaken to address the present need by employing think-aloud methodology to compare novice and skilled reading strategies. Therefore, a qualitative approach was taken to elicit as much information as possible for the purpose of identifying and describing competence in reading skills. The main research question addressed in this study deals with comparing strategy use of a group of novice second language EST readers studying academic English in Iran with another group of skilled second language EST readers from the same ethnic population but studying at the highest academic levels outside their mother land, viz. in Scotland. Several hypotheses were formed following a preliminary pilot study which included the following: a) there was a positive relationship between the number of strategies used by readers of each group and their performance on the TOEFL test; b) there are common areas in the readers' use of comprehension strategies which make the individual difference hypothesis in reading comprehension a debatable issue; c) the readers tend to follow an interactive approach to reading comprehension. Using an interactive model of reading seven categories of strategies were identified and classified. Non-significant correlation was obtained between number of strategies and language proficiency scores. Using a human information processing system, each reader's protocol was subjected to a detailed stage by stage analysis which supported the notion of the individual difference in reading comprehension. The readers also applied an interactive reading process to text comprehension.

The purpose of this study was to determine the implication for learning for learners whose home language is different from the medium of instruction at school.The study is focused on a group of Afrikaans learners for whom English is not a foreign language. Rather, English is a language that they are in contact with on a daily level through the media, their peers and in the classroom. The study looked at why these learners find themselves in English classes when the language policy of the country makes provision for their specific home language in the classroom. It also tried to determine whether these learners experience problems in their learning as they shift from Afrikaans as a home language to an English medium of instruction in class.