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January 1986

  1. Shape Imagery in Technical Terminology
    Abstract

    The concept of shape is commonly conveyed in scientific and technical fields by reference to pre-existing images presumably familiar to both writer and reader. Such images are drawn from a wide variety of sources which include geometrical images, shape images from nature and simple technology, and from familiar arbitrary forms such as the alphabet. Shape images in language continue to be invented, and provide both analogs for expression and analogs for thought. Once a term is established, it ceases to function as an analog. Examination of shape analogs serves as a useful microcosm of language development. Shape imagery is a facet of language that remains quite impervious to computer analysis and translation.

    doi:10.2190/2rep-34dh-ujh1-5mep

December 1985

  1. Writing for adult English language learners
    Abstract

    The reading needs of those who have not yet achieved proficiency-language learners, such as adults with normal hearing learning English as a second language and deaf adults-differ from the needs of fluent readers. The author explains how writers can use specific strategies to alleviate the difficulties these readers experience.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1985.6448839

October 1985

  1. The Development of Children's Writing: Language Acquisition and Divided Attention
    Abstract

    Readers and evaluators of children's writing still fall back on deficit explanations; papers are read for signs of what they lack rather than signs of growth. Presented here is a model that predicts how such growth may occur as a logical outcome of language acquisition. Drawing on research done in the past, the article provides a list of the kinds of language learning underway in the elementary school years and suggests that teachers may use this list to anticipate where and how such learning will influence the writing processes of children. Included in the list are sentence syntax, spelling conventions, and discourse grammars, all of which seem to be learned by “creative construction” (hypothesis building and refinement) and, to some extent, memorization. The article argues that children's writing performance is likely to suffer on one or more writing dimensions as the writer selectively attends to other dimensions of the task. For evaluators and teachers there are implications for feedback, for individual agendas, for revision, and for the kinds of conclusions one may draw from the examination of written products.

    doi:10.1177/0741088385002004005

January 1985

  1. The ESL Composition Course and the Idea of a University
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ce198513309

December 1984

  1. Basic Composition for ESL: An Expository Workbook
    Abstract

    1. GIVING INSTRUCTIONS How to Feel Comfortable at an American Dinner Party How To Make a Good Impression at a Job Interview How to Use a Copy Machine How to Get to Arlington National Cemetery From the White House 2. TELLING WHAT HAPPENED: OBJECTIVE REPORTING Ice Causes Accident Rain Causes Accident The First Manned Flight to the Moon An Historic Event Independence Day in Middleburg 3. ANALYZING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT Why Blake College is Popular Why Croft College is Unpopular Why Sandra Miller is Not Healthy Why Bob Adams (or Someone You Know) is Healthy The Causes of Famine 4. COMPARING AND CONTRASTING My Two Brothers Two Sisters Two Houses for Sale Two Items for Sale and Two Apartments for Rent Two Cities 5. CLASSIFYING Amount of Carbohydrates in Foods Amount of Protein in Foods Contact Sports Careers and Noncontact Sports The Uses of Cattle 6. DESCRIBING A MECHANISM OR A PROCESS A Television An AM/FM Radio The Human Respiratory System A System or Machine Earthquakes

    doi:10.2307/357805
  2. Alliance for Literacy: Teaching Non-native Speakers and Speakers of Nonstandard English Together
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc198414861
  3. ESL Composition: The Linear Product of American Thought
    doi:10.2307/357797

September 1984

  1. Increasing aural skills of international graduate students
    Abstract

    Deals with a successful attempt to improve the linguistic proficiency of international graduate students at Tennessee Technological University. Without proper guidance by skilled English language instructors at the very beginning of their graduate program, these newly arrived students may find themselves at a disadvantage in the American classroom because they lack the necessary aural comprehension and oral proficiency to take advantage of the learning environment. A pilot program at Tennessee Technological University has demonstrated that the international student's ability to process technical and nontechnical English efficiently in oral and aural models can be improved without requiring the student to take time-consuming intensive English programs on arrival in the US. Concentrated aural practice in the areas of listening acuity, inferencing, and problem solving yielded gains in proficiency over a short period. Graduate faculty members have reported improvements in student attitudes and in course work, as well as greater ease in communicating with these students.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1984.6448723

July 1984

  1. The Naming of Parts: An Examination of the Origins of Technical and Scientific Vocabulary
    Abstract

    Technical and scientific terms originate from many different sources. Among the most common are foreign language root words, names of originators, inventors and discoverers, names of common shapes, names of functions, acronyms, arbitrary labels, anonymous folk coinages and labels given by advertisers and public relations people. Numerous examples can be found of each of these. The usefulness and viability of technical and scientific terms is dependent upon the amount and kind of information contained within the term itself and the suitability of that information for the situation in which the term is used. The usefulness and viability of such terms is also dependent upon the terms' mnemonic qualities and upon their having the right ring or onomatopoeia. Although such effects are not entirely predictable or controllable, attention to them can nonetheless lead to more effective naming in science and technology.

    doi:10.2190/kutu-p8uf-9ebr-h01t

December 1983

  1. Problems in speaking abroad
    Abstract

    More and more speakers are making presentations in countries abroad, and many do not appreciate the additional factors that this involves. Barriers to communication for listeners with English as a second language include different meanings for the same words, failure to understand idioms and abbreviations, differences in culture and national background, and lack of familiarity with accents. The most effective aid to understanding is to speak slowly. There are additional considerations when using simultaneous translation, in particular, uninterrupted use of the microphone. The article includes 20 points to be noted when speaking abroad.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1983.6448176

October 1983

  1. Audiences Analysis across Cultures
    Abstract

    This paper discusses crosscultural differences in audience analysis, using research conducted during a series of consulting trips in Japanese industries. The paper identifies problems implicit in the way technical writing is taught to nonnative speakers in this country and abroad, and shows how awareness of and experience with audiences in non-American and non-Western cultures can benefit instruction in technical communication classes for American students.

    doi:10.2190/at9m-k3c6-rmjj-ucqt

July 1983

  1. Teaching Technical Communication at the Graduate Level: An Interdisciplinary Approach
    Abstract

    Native and international science, engineering, and humanities graduate students at The University of Texas at Arlington experience real-world communication situations in an interdisciplinary, projected-oriented technical communication course team-taught by a technical writer and a mechanical engineer. The course simulates the writing requirements of industry and helps students prepare theses and dissertations. A special feature for international students is a supplementary weekly laboratory session devoted to intensive review of writing fundamentals. The course, which has been offered three times since 1976 with enrollments of eleven, five, and nine students, has been received well by science and engineering students for whom it was initially designed and by humanities students who now also enroll. Even though in some cases the progress that a foreign student makes in one semester is limited, all students have found the course of great benefit. The interdisciplinary team approach is an effective way of teaching graduate-level technical communication, providing engineers an opportunity to learn to express ideas to humanists and providing humanists an opportunity to learn to communicate effectively with engineers and scientists.

    doi:10.2190/mnu0-eytf-pjc9-1que

May 1983

  1. Segmentation and Punctuation: Developmental Data from Young Writers in a Bilingual Program
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/rte198315714

January 1983

  1. Teaching Technical Writing to Non-Native Speakers of English
    doi:10.2190/lmay-cmh9-kwv3-avna
  2. Teaching Technical Writing to Non-Native Speakers of English
    Abstract

    Teaching technical writing to non-native speakers of English is complicated by their special needs. Central to the discussion is the idea that expository writing ought to be a key element of any program purporting to teach English. The nature of proper preparatory training is discussed with specific reference to the language groups American trainers are likely to encounter working in the U.S. or abroad. The justification for specific practices is discussed and should enable instructors to develop further strategies for training. Once the preparatory work is completed, effective technical writing instruction for non-native trainees requires modification of a good program for native speakers. Training is most effective if material is presented in culturally familiar and intellectually compatible ways.

    doi:10.1177/004728168301300101

September 1982

  1. Teaching English technical writing to Japanese specialists
    Abstract

    Instructors of technical writing can teach Japanese specialists more effectively by being aware of some basic linguistic differences. One of the difficulties with traditional instruction is that it is prepared from the native speaker's point of view. Instruction should be prepared to meet the foreign students' needs. Japanese students experience difficulty in three areas: First, they have trouble with technical terms, often relying too literally on a dictionary to offer a synonym. The consequence is their selecting imprecise terms which in turn produces an awkward expression. Second, Japanese students have trouble with English grammar — in particular with articles, prepositions, tenses, auxiliary verbs, and the subjunctive mood. Finally, they are challenged by rhetoric, that is, choosing and arranging words effectively. Examples of each problem are offered with suggestions on how to make the students more aware of the principles involved.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1982.6447779

July 1982

  1. Communication and Criticism
    Abstract

    Language study and literary criticism have for many years been separated. Modern developments in critical theory have stressed the study of texts. Structuralism developed a semiotic approach to texts using psychological and linguistic theory to support objective analysis. Poststructuralist theory has further developed these approaches investigating deep and surface significance in textual interpretation urging a deconstruction of texts to yield a full contemporary understanding. The relationship between writer, reader, text, and context is seen anew within the whole communication complex in an approach which regards texts as discourse. Advanced foreign language teaching unites literature and language in a new synthesis stressing communication and conceptualization through language. Technical communication should be aware of new interdisciplinary trends since it is itself at the center of the dominant theme of communication.

    doi:10.2190/ekkm-w77j-p62k-ybet

February 1982

  1. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook
    Abstract

    Preface 1. THE CONTEXTS OF TEACHING PERSPECTIVES Richard Fulkerson: Four Philosophies of Composition James Berlin: Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class Edward P.J. Corbett: Rhetoric, the Enabling Discipline Min-Zhan Lu and Bruce Horner: The Problematic of Experience: Redefining Critical Work in Ethnography and Pedagogy TEACHERS Peter Elbow: Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process Donald M. Murray: The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference Lad Tobin: Reading Students, Reading Ourselves: Revising the Teacher's Role in the Writing Class Dan Morgan: Ethical Issues Raised by Students' Personal Writing STUDENTS Mina P. Shaughnessy: Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing Vivian Zamel: Strangers in Academia: The Experiences of Faculty and ESL Students Across the Curriculum Todd Taylor: The Persistence of Difference in Networked Classrooms: Non-Negotiable Difference and the African American Student Body LOCATIONS Hephzibah Roskelly: The Risky Business of Group Work Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe: The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class Muriel Harris: Talking in the Middle: Why Writers Need Writing Tutors APPROACHES Min-Zhan Lu: Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy: A Critique of the Politics of Linguistic Innocence Mariolina Salvatori: Conversations with Texts: Reading in the Teaching of Composition Gary Tate: A Place for Literature in Freshman Composition Carolyn Matalene: Experience as Evidence: Teaching Students to Write Honestly and Knowledgeably about Public Issues 2. THE TEACHING OF WRITING ASSIGNING Mike Rose: Writing Courses: A Critique and a Proposal David Peck, Elizabeth Hoffman, and Mike Rose: A Comment and Response on Remedial Writing Courses Richard L. Larson: The Research Paper in the Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor: Teaching Argument: A Theory of Types Catherine E. Lamb: Beyond Argument in Feminist Composition RESPONDING AND ASSESSING Brooke K. Horvath: The Components of Written Response: A Practical Synthesis of Current Views David Bartholomae: The Study of Error Jerry Farber: Learning How to Teach: A Progress Report COMPOSING AND REVISING Nancy Sommers: Between the Drafts James A. Reither: Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process David Bleich: Collaboration and the Pedagogy of Disclosure AUDIENCES Douglas B. Park: The Meanings of Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford: Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy Peter Elbow: Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience STYLES Robert J. Connors: Static Abstractions and Composition Winston Weathers: Teaching Style: A Possible Anatomy Elizabeth D. Rankin: Revitalizing Style: Toward a New Theory and Pedagogy Richard Ohmann: Use Definite, Specific, Concrete Language

    doi:10.2307/357852

November 1981

  1. English and Other Foreign Language Teaching in the People’s Republic of China
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ce198113762
  2. English and Other Foreign Language Teaching in the People's Republic of China
    doi:10.2307/376893

September 1981

  1. Pitfalls for Japanese specialists in english technical writing
    Abstract

    To understand a scientific or technical article written in English by Japanese specialists, readers should understand in what areas of English grammar the Japanese tend to make mistakes. Most common are mistakes in the use of articles, subjunctive mood, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs. Also a problem is the use of unsuitable words, often due to the use of bilingual dictionaries. A further complication arises from the absence of the perfect tenses in Japanese.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1981.6447875

May 1981

  1. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching
    doi:10.2307/356699

1981

  1. Working with the ESL Student: Learning Patience, Making Progress
    Abstract

    I can't do anything I want, if I can't write English. " Margarita's desire to improve lights her eyes and makes her soft Ecuadorian accent tremble with emphasis. This strong motivation, possessed by almost all the ESL students at George Mason, will help her achieve relative fluency in writing in a remarkably short time. But, like many of the other 100 of these students who visit George Mason's Writing Place each semester, Margarita is hindered by an impatience to move more quickly than she can through her composition courses. Above average, sometimes brilliant, students in their native countries, they discover that their writing of English -which they may have studied for years in school -keeps them from passing introductory courses. For the Writing Place staff, the task is as much to put this ' 'failure" in the perspective of reasonable expectations as it is to discover strategies for improving the writing. Of course, reasonable expectations vary with the individual, so that when a student declares, as Margarita will later in this session, "I must pass English 101 this semester," I try to learn as much as I can about his or he/ academic goals, as well as about course standing, before either encouraging or trying to mitigate the sense of urgency. Occasionally, a student is under a constraint -a government scholarship for two years of study in the United States, for example-which compels rapid advancement; in these cases, the staff member carefully maps out, with the student's teacher, a program of extra work in the Writing Place to help the student complete the course as efficiently as possible. The reason for Margarita's urgency is the more common: she feels that she must quickly prove her ability to succeed in the American university, and her difficulty in English 101 has given rise to self-doubt. For Margarita, her doubts as an ESL student are compounded by those she feels as a woman in her forties returning to college after a long absence.

    doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1051

September 1980

  1. Written Composition: Toward a Theory of Evaluation
    Abstract

    PICK UP ANY RECENT PUBLICATION on composition and you will almost surely find some reference to the problem of evaluating writing. Teachers and researchers alike acknowledge that pronouncing judgment on a piece of writing is both important and difficult. Important because teaching students to write, sorting students for placement or admission, and research in composition all depend upon ability to discriminate levels of quality in writing. Difficult because the theoretical basis of evaluation remains unarticulated. In contrast, composition instruction has begun developing a coherent set of assumptions. For example, theorists may disagree on the relative merits of classical, tagmemic, dramatistic, and prewriting forms of invention, but they agree on the principle that invention is part of the writing process. Evaluation of writing proceeds without a similar set of principles. Yet evaluation does proceed. The need for deciding who shall attend which college, designating those competent to graduate from high school, identifying growth in writing, or determining our nation's educational progress have spawned various systems for evaluating writing. Holistic scoring, quantification of syntactic features, analytic scales, and primary trait scoring illustrate the range of existing methodologies for evaluating writing. Rather than evolving from commonly held assumptions about evaluation, each method rests upon its own set of assumptions. Statistical computations of reader responses provide the rationale for holistic scoring and analytical scales; developmental stages of language acquisition account for quantification of syntactic features; a triangular model of discourse underlies primary trait scoring. Each of these systems and the assumptions underlying it represent careful and intelligent thought, and my purpose here is not to denigrate any of them. I cite them simply as illustrations of my point. Driven by the necessity to evaluate writing, theorists have avoided examination of the nature of evaluation itself and have moved directly to devising means (and rationales for these means) for accomplishing this difficult task. In this article I wish to propose a more general theory of evaluation and to suggest how it might be worked out in practical terms. This theory grows out of a philosophical and linguistic debate on the question of meaning. The debate, best summarized by P. F. Strawson's distinction between

    doi:10.2307/376032

May 1980

  1. Bilingual and Monolingual English Syntax on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/rte198015806

February 1980

  1. Correlation of First Day doze with Final Grade in Literattare for Foreign Students
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/rte198015817

December 1979

  1. Language Acquisition and the Teaching and learning of Writing
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ce197915983

October 1979

  1. Teaching the Teachers to Teach Black-Dialect Writers
    Abstract

    LAST SPRING I VOLUNTEERED to teach an English graduate course entitled Teaching of Writing to Speakers of Dialect. Of course everyone speaks a dialect, but the graduate students were no fools. They knew that this verbose title was a euphemism for teaching students in remedial courses to write. After consenting to do the course, I panicked. I am and therefore thought by my department to know something about dialect problems. Of course I felt just about as much in the dark (forgive the racist imagery) on this matter as most of my colleagues, though I regularly taught the remedial, freshman English course which enrolls mostly and Spanish-speaking students. Now I was going to be unmasked as being as unenlightened and unexotic as my white colleagues. Heaven forbid! I scurried around to the graduate students who might take such a course and made them promise that they would not pre-register, hoping that the course would fold for lack of enrollment. But, alas, it didn't. So on the first day of class, I went to the assigned room, met my ten white English graduate students, confessed my ignorance, and began to teach what proved to be a fairly useful course, i.e., I learned a lot by teaching it. We began the course as all good graduate courses begin and end, with the students doing most of the work. We tried to make a complete annotated bibliography from 1964-77 on black dialect and from four journals which publish in this area: English Journal, College English, College Composition and Communication, and Florida Foreign Language Reporter. We dittoed our bibliographical finds each week and also starred and commented on the most interesting articles. The students murmured about the amount of time our comments took each week, but I found the practical ideas for teaching writing which came from these articles and the students' comments most helpful. The articles were also helpful, especially when compared with the readings in our three texts,' in eradicating the naivete with which some of the students began the course: they wanted me as a teacher of remedial composition to tell them how to teach dialect writers in twenty-five words or less, and if not in so few

    doi:10.2307/376406
  2. Teaching Written English as a Second Language
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc197916229

January 1979

  1. Grammar Sample Sentences and the Power of Suggestion
    Abstract

    IN The Bald Soprano Ionesco satirizes the grammar samples he studied while learning English, and many of us still remember some absurdly useless fragment, like How old is your aunt?, from a freshman foreign language class. But what about our own composition textbooks and tests? Humor, and opportunities to smile and share that pleasure with students, are welcome. But when I consider one of the findings of the second round of reading tests (1974-5) by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which demonstrated a decline in students' ability to detect irony, I wonder whether some of our grammar samples may not be suggesting unsuitable messages, to say the least, to students who are disposed, or decide, to read them literally. Such a discomfiting possibility occurred to me recently when a group of freshman composition students balked at doing this sentence combining exercise:

    doi:10.2307/376319

November 1978

  1. Where's Johnny?
    Abstract

    ALL I COULD SEE in front of me was white. White walls, frozen white on the roof outside my window, icicles hanging from a nearby roof gutter like translucent chandeliers. Rows of houses filled with blank minds; people staring at blank paper trying to fill the pages with anything. To generate thoughts and transfer them to paper, an impossible task. But why? Do writing demons cloud the mind and make writing so painful? The final paper was due in a few weeks. It was to be our perfect paper. A month after handing it in we would be teaching composition to some poor kids. I had no energy to write it and nothing to write about. I disgustedly left the typewriter and sprawled out on the bed. The page was blank so I couldn't even crumple it to vent my frustration. I picked up a book of short stories by Woody Alien and begin reading about a Boston College coed who hired a detective to find out if God was dead. She needed the information for a term paper. This story gave me an idea for my own final paper. There have been many articles on why Johnny can't read or write. Why such a tremendous interest in this fellow Johnny? Just who is he? I was determined to find out and use the material in my final paper. I went back to my typewriter and began writing letters to some of the major publications in which Johnny's story had appeared. After a week of receiving no replies, I began calling the places on the phone. Everyone I spoke with laughed at me. I called the FBI but the most I could get from them was, No comment. At this point I began to suspect conspiracy. There was no logical reason unless the government was now getting into conspiracy as an art form. Conspiracy for conspiracy's sake. One kid could not have any noticeable effect on the national average for standardized tests. My investigation had reached a dead end until one day I looked at a book titled Current Topics in Language (Nancy Ainsworth Johnson, ed.: Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1976) and came upon an article entitled Juanito's Reading Problems: Foreign Language Interference and Reading Skill Acquisition, by Nancy Modiano. So the plot thickened; either Johnny was using an alias, or matters had been complicated by a new person (or should I say persona) entering the scene. Going on the assumption that Johnny and Juanito were one and the same, I hired a detective to find him. All we had to go on was his name and the fact that he supposedly couldn't read or write. The detective tramped around the Midwest through the snow, made numerous phone calls, and followed around certain literary editors. After two weeks the situation seemed hopeless and I could no longer afford her fees, that is, if I was to pay the next semester's tuition. It was at the back of

    doi:10.2307/375794

June 1978

  1. A communicative grammar of English — Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik
    Abstract

    The author's preface states that A Communicative Grammar of English is intended primarily for the “advanced overseas student” who has learned English as a second language, but many professional communicators who speak English as a first language may also find this book useful.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1978.6591725

May 1978

  1. Video as an Instructional Aid for English-as-a-Second-Language Teaching
    Abstract

    Since 1966 approximately 120,000 children aged 14 years or younger have been admitted to Canada as landed immigrants from non-English speaking countries {Canadian Citizenship Statistics, 1975). A substantial number of children born in Canada of immigrant parents do not know English well, if at all, because the mother tongue of their parents is used extensively in the home (O'Bryan, K., Kuplowski, O., & Reitz, J., 1976). To accommodate these children school boards have initiated and expanded English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) programs in their schools. These programs teach children regular academic subjects in an atmosphere designed to facilitate the transition from their mother tongue to English. During the course of program development for ESL, few attempts have been made to provide video aids for ESL teachers (Sherrington, 1973). However, television has the ability to provide services essential to effective ESL instruction. In order for the meaning of new words to be grasped, many concrete examples of a word must be provided (Titone, 1970). While a teacher may find this difficult, especially for action or abstract words, video aids can provide examples from widely diverse contexts. Video aids can also provide examples of speaking, listening, and writing. Cultural information, a requirement for effective language comprehension (Nostrand, 1966), can be provided incidentally. Television programs could even go beyond the instruction of the basics of language in an ESL setting. Programs such as the Electric Company have been shown to be effective in aiding English speaking students with reading problems (Ball et al., 1974). It is possible that such programs could be used to teach ESL students reading in conjunction with regular ESL instruction. Indeed, Paulston & Bruder (1976) have stated that, because of the substantial transfer of reading skills in one language to reading skills in a new language, reading instruction should begin early in ESL studies. Thus, the present study was designed to experimentally demonstrate that video can be an effective aid for ESL instruction.

    doi:10.58680/rte197817897

March 1978

  1. Don't No Revolutions Hardly Ever Come by Here
    Abstract

    WHEN W. NELSON FRANCIS said that, he didn't have it in mind to fun nobody. For sure there was no way he could have knowed, twenty years ahead of time, that his words would look like something meant for a bitter joke today. The revolution he was talking about (using structuralist linguistics to teach English) hasn't happened vet, to begin with. And to go on with, another one-generative transformational linguistics-has come along in the meantime and turned out about as useful to a teacher as a rubber crutch. The structuralists and the transformationalists haven't either one of them come up with the sweeping consequences Francis was so sure about. Structural linguistics gets used mostly in foreign language classes; and transformational grammar, in spite of two three papers saying that it might could be a little bit of use after all, has swept right into and right back out of English classes, leaving precious little behind itmaybe a good word or two said for sentence-combining exercises.1 There was the Roberts English Series, poor sorry thing, that no doubt meant well; all it did in the long run was teach a whole generation of English teachers to despise transformational grammar forevermore. Chomsky himself, they'll tell you, said T-grammar had no place in anybody's English class, and they're with him on that; by now you won't hear much else said on the subject amongst teachers. Seeing as how all this is true, it's purely radical of me to say that I disagree with all that; it's radicaller yet to say I think I can prove I'm right. Let me get the radicalities over with first off, then, by saving that six years work has got me convinced that transformational grammar for sure does have a place in

    doi:10.2307/375700

April 1977

  1. English for Communicative Competence: Helping Scientists and Engineers from Overseas
    Abstract

    Traditional courses and course-books for teaching English as a foreign language are often too general and grammar-orientated for students of technology from overseas. The students are well motivated for learning how to communicate effectively within their technical contexts. To harness their enthusiasm, courses on communication skills need to emphasize functions as well as forms of language.

    doi:10.2190/7eqf-kcjr-1m2u-23ul

January 1977

  1. Developmental Aspects of the Ability to Understand Semantic Ambiguity, with Implications for Teachers
    Abstract

    This study deals with an investigation of adult ability to understand aspects of semantic ambiguity and, as a corollary, the developing ability of children to understand these same linguistic structures. Current linguistic theories based on the insights of transformational-generative grammarians led by N. Chomsky (1957) have been concerned with developing rules which account for adult native speakers' intuitions about their language. Abilities imputed to adults include the recognition of paraphrases, anomalous sentences, synonymous sentences, and ambiguous sentences (Katz, 1972) . As noted by Mayher (1970) , for centuries philosophers and linguists have been hypothesizing the developmental aspects of language acquisition. Current linguistic theories it possible to understand the complexities of language and investigate their development. The rules of language, which are tacitly acquired, constitute a grammar of competence or a competence model. Grammarians make a fundamental distinction between competence (the speakerhearer's knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete situations) (N. Chomsky, 1965, p. 47) . Therefore, one focus of this investigation was the tapping of linguistic competence for the 40 adults and 50 children interviewed, all of whom were native speakers of American English.

    doi:10.58680/rte197719920
  2. Language Development: A Review
    doi:10.58680/rte197719921

September 1975

  1. Cooperation among journals: A European vantage point
    Abstract

    The European Association of Editors of Biological Periodicals (ELSE), which emerged from Council of Biology Editors' beginnings, was founded to promote and assist in raising the quality of journals in Europe. Besides dealing with specific problems of writing in English by scientists for whom English to a foreign language, ELSE is concerned with primary-secondary journal relationships, with the smoother integration of journals from smaller non-English speaking countries into the international information system, and with overcoming the time lag due to technical and psychological reasons. Despite cries about increasing economic limitations, there has been a proliferation of journals, societies, guides, and practices. Cooperation in the way of seeking uniformity while preserving individual character, providing redactory services, identifying referees, standardizing, and developing new systems of information transfer is discussed. The First International Conference of Scientific Editors is introduced.

    doi:10.1109/tpc.1975.6591169

January 1975

  1. Sentence-Combining as a Curricular Activity: Its Effect on Written Language Development and Reading Comprehension
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/rte197520060

April 1974

  1. Formal Written Communication and ESL
    Abstract

    This article, first of all, describes some of the results of research into the relationship between grammatical choice and rhetorical function in English for Science and Technology (EST). The second part of the paper presents some details about procedures used in EST courses for non-native speakers. We emphasize changes made in these procedures through application of the results of our research. Some unsolved problems are referred to.

    doi:10.2190/ewjm-dn3e-r2v0-h3h4

April 1973

  1. Teaching Technical Writing to Foreign Students
    Abstract

    Students are selected by a diagnostic essay. They begin simply, by completing job application forms, personal resumes, and letters of application, tasks which require concise expression of facts, which reveal much about the students' backgrounds, and which they must use to get a job. Then they move to the daily writing problems an engineer faces. In every class they also practice exercises that correct the many errors caused by the change from their native language into English.

    doi:10.2190/uhtg-p70t-2upt-lpb1

January 1972

  1. The Politics of Bidialectalism
    Abstract

    that it is meant mostly for lower-class blacks and not for the lower class in general. It comes, fortunately, at a time when many blacks are piecing together their identity, saving it from powerful attempts to fragment and destroy it. It is therefore controversial and widely discussed (see, for example, Olivia Mellan, Black English. Why Try to Eradicate It, The New Republic, 28 November 1970, pp. 15-17). But it has not been discussed in a wide enough context, so it is my purpose to do that in the following pages, thus to indicate why this ill-advised attempt to change people should be rejected. Let me begin with what I understand to be some facts and some pretty good hunches about language and language learning. It is, for example, an empirical assumption that language differences intuitively understood as dialect differences are relatively superficial, that is th t they amount to rule differences (in the terminology of the linguistic theory of Chomsky) which fall quite low in the ordered set of rules that constitutes

    doi:10.2307/375599

January 1971

  1. The Effect of Pupil-Prepared Videotaped Dramas upon the Language Development of Selected Rural Children
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/rte197120159

October 1966

  1. Teaching English as a Second Language
    Abstract

    In the first two chapters of this study, the author provides an overview of the role of television in education, and reviews some of the research carried out in the field. Following chapters deal with foreign language teaching, the teaching of English as a second language, teacher training, the teaching of English in Israel, a contrastive analysis of the use of the indefinite determiner in English and modern Hebrew, a lesson plan utilizing ETV, and a projected view of the field. Concluding the study are a bibliography and a brief listing of video-tape programs in English-as-a-second-language programs used by the United States Information Services, the British Council, the Centre for Educational Television Overseas (London) , the Swedish Schools Broadcasts, the St.

    doi:10.2307/354471

February 1966

  1. Composition in English as a Second Language: Cross Cultural Communication
    Abstract

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    doi:10.58680/ccc196621010
  2. Advanced Reading and Writing: Exercises in English as a Second Language
    doi:10.2307/354063

October 1965

  1. ESL Programs: Composition and Literature
    doi:10.2307/355762
  2. Grammar and Composition
    Abstract

    The goals of this course is to • help students to explore English grammar through a unique ’discovery ’ approach that encom-passes both critical thinking and text analysis • study English grammar from a theoretically/descriptively informed perspective? seek the right balance in our English grammar teaching between theory and practice • help (prospective) teachers to be able to apply this knowledge in various contexts. This course is ideal and useful for those interested in English education/language arts, English as a second language, and linguistics. The class will cover the basic grammar rules and major English constructions. After each chapter, students will have a writing assignment that tests the grammar rules covered in the chapter. Students who successfully finish this course will be able to apply their understanding of grammar structure to the EFL classroom. As usual, this class consists of two class hours as a unit. Students are required to read the main textbooks thoroughly and do exercises as homework. Main Textbook:

    doi:10.2307/355748

October 1964

  1. Composition for Foreign Students
    doi:10.2307/354983

October 1963

  1. English for Foreign Students
    doi:10.2307/355061