The purpose of this study was to determine the difference in the short term and and long term second language (L2) gains of first year Spanish students exposed to the Audiolingual Method (ALM) and the Natural Approach. The experiment consisted of two randomly selected groups which were exposed to four presentations. Two of these presentations delivered content material following a Natural Approach lesson design while the other two delivered content material following an ALM lesson design in such a way that both groups were exposed to two ALM lessons and two Natural Approach lessons. All subjects were pre-tested prior to the delivery of these lessons and subsequently tested after the first lessons for short term L2 gains. They were then re-tested after several weeks to measure long term L2 gains. The number of subjects that participated in the experiment was 249 and included all enrolled first year Spanish students at Oregon State University for the 1992 fall term. The data were analyzed using the two-way analysis of variance. The results of the investigation indicated that teaching method was not a significant factor in students' short term and long term L2 aquisition gains. The study thus implies that neither the Natural Approach nor the ALM can be considered superior in terms of quantifiable student gains and retention. Recommendations for further study are presented.

Technological advances in Digital Signal Processing over the last decade have provided applied linguists with a number of computerized applications for speech analysis which can be of benefit to both the researcher and the instructor. This research project explores the techniques of speech spectrography and implements methods of acoustic phonetics to current issues in Second Language Acquisition theory. Specifically, the effects of vowel production in one's native language on the targets in a second language are investigated. Acoustic measurements of English vowels spoken by Japanese students were compared with measurements of native Japanese vowels and American English vowels. In addition, these data were compared with measurements of learner speech from a variety of native language backgrounds. Vowels from both groups of non-native English speakers showed tendencies toward the center of the vowel space. The less-experienced group showed greater token-to-token variability across height parameters than across frontedness parameters while the more experienced group showed no difference for parameters. Both groups exhibited greater frontedness than height variability between speakers which can be explained in part by differences in vocal tract size. In addition, Flege's Speech Learning Model was tested. Data did not support the hypothesis that similar vowels are more difficult to produce than different vowels. ANOVA tests showed that large LI vowel inventories do not advantage learners of languages with many vowels. The results suggest that the unique qualities of L2 speech may have more to do with developmental processes than L 1 interference.

There is increasing interest on the part of ESL educators in the inclusion of contemporary, global issues in their classrooms. Theory about content-based ESL, as well as trends in education, generally, lend support to such enthusiasm. However, ESL educators may be erroneously assuming that their interest in this material is shared by their students. Global issues can also be controversial. Their inclusion in the classroom has the potential to create an uncomfortable, and therefore ineffective, learning atmosphere in a multicultural ESL setting. This qualitative case study examined the use of global issues as the content material in a university-based ESL advanced listening/ speaking class, from the perspective of ten students. A variety of data-gathering methods were employed: direct observation of whole-class sessions; observation and audio-recordings of small-group discussions; tape-recorded journals created by the subjects; audio-recordings of two interviews conducted with each subject. The study focused on three areas: awareness of/interest in global issues developed by the subjects while in their home countries; background experiences and interest in critical analysis developed by the subjects prior to the study; possible changes experienced by the subjects, both in comfort and interest in using global issues in the ESL classroom, during the study. The results indicate that the majority of the subjects entered the classroom with some exposure to several specific global issues. Most had little experience in analyzing the issues using the type of critical analysis common to American academic settings. Initially, most felt hesitant about publicly expressing opinions regarding controversial issues; this reluctance was alleviated by the end of the term. Interest in the material also increased for most subjects during the term. The primary difficulties were found to be related less to global issues and more to the activities performed while working with the subject matter. The study concludes that global issues may be better- suited to classroom activities requiring less public expression of individual ideas and opinions. It also recommends training for ESL educators in intercultural conflict resolution, to enable them to facilitate effective classroom discussion of controversial issues.

Over the past ten years, the use of student writing journals has become increasingly widespread in the TESOL field. Such journals serve a wide variety of purposes: a cultural diary, a free writing exercise, a forum for reaction or comment on readings or classroom discussions, in addition to a form of teacher/student dialogue. The main purpose of this study has been to determine the relationship of topic assignment to the quantity and quality of resulting entries. The data, 144 journal entries generated by ten adult ESL students over a period of ten weeks, were measured for length, in terms of total words and total number of T-units, and quality as assessed by the Jacobs profile (1981) which considers the following areas: content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics. In addition, student reactions to instructor comments and attitudes toward journal keeping were explored in an end of term questionnaire. It was found that, on a group level, the assignment of four specified topic types (A. Topics relating to class lectures and discussions, B. Topics relating class discussions to the students' respective cultures, C. Topics relating to class or personal experiences and D. No topic assignment) did not appear to have any relationship with either the quality or quantity of writing. However, on an individual level, topic assignment did seem to have a relationship with the quantity of writing and in some cases, the quality as well. In considering student reaction to instructor comments, all students reported reading instructor comments, but rarely responded to them. When considering topic assignment, 74% of the students stated preferring an assigned topic, yet 60% actually wrote more when given a free choice of topic. Also, on the individual level, students stated a variety of topic type preferences that roughly corresponded with an increase in entry length. Finally, students seemed to have a positive attitude toward journal keeping as 80% stated they would like to keep a journal next term.

In order to determine the reliability of international students' English as a Second Language (ESL) class performance as a predictor of academic performance, a population of 169 international students at Portland State University (PSU) in Portland, Oregon were selected and statistical tests were performed on their GPAs and TOEFL scores. Individual students' GPAs were computed for all ESL classes taken and for each component--grammar, reading, writing, and speaking/listening--as well as for the end of the first quarter, first year, and second year of academic study. Pearson Coefficient Correlations were then computed for the ESL and academic GPAs. The students were also divided into subgroups based upon gender, nature of academic major (more-verbal or less-verbal), age, nationality (Asian or Middle-Eastern), number of ESL classes taken, amount of previous English-speaking college experience, prior education level, TOEFL score, and PSU entry date. Then mean GPAs were calculated for each of these which were compared by T-tests. The results were mixed. While it was clear that ESL grades and academic grades correlated strongly for some variable groups, it was difficult to determine which variables had the strongest effect because of subgroup composition. For example, female students, students from Asia, and students whose majors fit the more-verbal category showed strong and statistically significant correlations for ESL-second year academic grades; but 90% of the women were from countries of Asia, and the proportion of both Asian and female students in the more-verbal majors was much higher than that of males or students from countries of the Middle East. There were two patterns that stood out in the research results. One was that ESL students who had taken twelve or more ESL classes maintained consistent academic GPAs across time, while those who had taken fewer than twelve ESL classes and all students in the non-ESL group had GPAs that started higher than those of the first group but declined over the two year period--some of them enough to be statistically significant. The second pattern was that groups with strong ESL academic GPA correlations tended to do better in college that did those with weaker ESL-academic GPA relationships. TOEFL scores were correlated to both ESL and academic grades. In the first case, there were both moderately positive and statistically significant relationships. In the second case, the correlations were very low; and for non-ESL students, there was essentially no correlation. But comparing mean academic GPAs showed a significant difference between students who scored below 500 and those who scored 500 and above on the TOEFL.

This paper describes a case study of a non-native speaking (NNS) dental hygienist in her work environment. The subject learned English by learning to become a dental hygienist rather than through formal language education. Participant observation and discourse, event/network, and componential analyses were the methods used to analyze the subject's communication in her work setting. The philosophical question as to how ESP differs from ESL is raised and elements of the work setting and the NNS workers' communication with interlocutors in that setting are identified to aid educators in teaching ESP courses. Questions ESP educators might address in designing and teaching ESP courses are given as well as suggestions for future research.

This research examined whether bilingualism would accelerate or hinder the cognitive as well as academic development of the Korean American individuals in an Oregon school district by analyzing the standardized test scores at grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. Eleven monolingual and 27 bilingual students released the Survey of Basic Skills (SBS) as well as Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) scores for this study. The analyses of the test scores revealed that the Korean-American students in this school district were performing at a much higher level against the national norm (the 50th percentile), or the school district norm (the 75th percentile). The bilingual Korean-American students made far greater progress both cognitively and academically from grades 3 to 9 (CogAT: 76.0 %ILE- 87.0 %ILE, SBS Composite: 77.0 %ILE- 87.0 %ILE) than their monolingual counterparts who hovered around the 85th percentile against the national norm. It was learned that the bilingual Korean-Americans were both cognitively and academically as developed as their monolingual counterparts by the time they were in 5th grade. Telephone interviews conducted with 46 bilingual and 23 monolingual Korean-American high school students as well as 30 written questionnaires returned by their parents revealed that the Korean-American students in this particular school district could not become naturally bilingual, but that a commitment both by the students and their parents was necessary to maintain their ethnic language. The parents of the bilingual students were making more efforts to pass on the Korean language to their offspring than the parents of monolingual students. The Korean-American families were very much integrated into the social mainstream, and were trying to achieve educational as well as economic successes on American's terms while maintaining their ethnic identity.

The relationship of language and culture is explored in this thesis for the purpose of better understanding why all sojourners, regardless of preparation, experience some degree of culture shock. The author begins with a review of literature on culture shock establishing that the native language of sojourners is not considered to be of any consequence to the sojourning experience. The fields of intercultural communication, social psychology and psychology are then explored to establish the link between language and culture and to introduce the notion of linguistic identity. Evidence found in each of these fields leads the author to conclude that linguistic identity must become a focal point of language instruction and that both language and linguistic identity must be addressed more effectively in pre-departure orientations. Also included is a research proposal which is designed to test pre-departure orientation strategies which introduce students to linguistic identity and to track their transition experiences over the course of a year-long study abroad sojourn.

Virtually all future teachers _of ESL/EFL have been foreign- or second-language learners themselves. However, reflection on their own past language-learning experiences is usually not integrated into the coursework of professional TESOL preparation programs and there has been little published research in TESOL in which students in professional TESOL preparation programs reflect on their past language learning experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore the effects on TESOL Methods students of revisiting a past language-learning experience. The subjects were students in a TESOL Methods class. This study examined an assignment given to these students to write a short "language learning narrative" (LLN) describing a past language learning experience. The data base of this qualitative study included included thirty-one LLNs, thirty-one free-writes and eleven interviews with these TESOL students. The results indicate that the students' memories of affective factors such as nervousness about speaking in class and feeling successful or unsuccessful as language learners were prominent in their minds, as was a strong focus on the teacher. The benefits to the TESOL students of writing the LLNs included increased sensitivity to the perspective of the learner, willingness to engage in reflection, and an understanding of the connections between their past experiences and the kinds of experiences they wanted to create in future language classrooms. While the TESOL students seemed to have mastered the latter skill, they did not see their past language learning experiences as a resource that could give them insights into particular teaching dilemmas. Also, they tended to make direct generalizations based on their own past reactions as language learners to what they imagined their future students' reactions would be. They wanted to recreate for their future students experiences that had been positive for them and do the opposite of what the teachers of language classes they had experienced as negative had done. The study concludes that the LLN assignment is recommended for use in other professional TESOL training programs, with modifications that would encourage the students to become aware of variations in learner preferences and to view their past language learning experiences as a continuing resource.

Since its publication in 1898, The Turn of the Screw has been the focus of diverse critical interpretation. It has reflected shifts in critical theory that include the Freudian, psychoanalytic, mythological, structuralist, reader-response, linguistic, and new-historical schools. The majority of critical interpretations have focused on the governess's narrative and have excluded the prologue, or frame narrative, that begins the novella. The critics who did examine the prologue overlooked James's departure from the traditional use of frame narration and the importance of the structure of the frame in creating a text of insoluble ambiguity. James departed from traditional frame narration in four ways. By using only an opening frame, the reader is forced to rely on the prologue in order to determine narrative reliability. By creating a condition of reciprocal authority between the unnamed narrator and Douglas, the opening frame denies the possibility of using either character to substantiate the reliability of the other. The condition of reciprocal authority is constructed through a dialogue pattern in which the narrator and Douglas interpret each other's gestures and comments and finish each other's sentences. It is the use of the pattern in the prologue that prepares the reader to accept it in the governess's narrative. The governess repeats the dialogue pattern with Mrs. Grose and Miles. Their discussions appear to validate the governess as a reliable narrator when in fact her reliability is as impossible to determine as the reliability of Douglas or the frame narrator. The result of these departures from traditional frame narration is the construction of a text of insoluble ambiguity.