ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Volume 151, Issue 1, 2006

The word idiom and its derivatives idiomatic, idiomatically and idiomaticity are used with a wide range of meanings. Idiomatic English is used to refer to fluent language use that sounds like that of a native speaker. Items loosely classed as idioms include colloquial expressions, collocations, acceptable but unusual expressions, and opaque multi-word units. If linguists are pressed to define what an idiom is, they usually say that an idiom is a multi-word unit where the meaning of the whole unit is not clear from the meaning of its parts. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study where one particular use of the term idiom was very carefully defined and to show what the effects of the application of this careful definition were on coming up with a definitive list of idioms. It is argued that carefully distinguishing idioms from other multiword units makes sense for the teaching and leaming of multi-word units because different approaches are needed for the different types of multi-word units. Phrasal verbs were not included in the study.

Foreign language curricula now frequently require foreign language teachers to integrate intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education. This study's objective was to investigate whether and to what extent foreign language teachers support this new objective. To that aim, an international research design was developed, involving teachers in Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

Our findings suggest that the larger part of the teachers who participated in our study are clearly willing to teach intercultural communicative competence (icc) in their classrooms, but that this overall positive disposition is conditioned by a number of convictions regarding the best way to teach ICC. In addition, we found that, despite differences in national teaching circumstances, teachers in different countries share a number of these convictions.

This study investigates the appropriateness of the Action Pack Textbook Series (APTS) currently taught in the first four primary stage classes in Jordanian public schools. An evaluation checklist, compiled from the literature, and a semi-structured interview were used to evaluate the content, layout, assessment tasks, teacher's book and the availability of supplementary materials.

The findings support the following conclusions: Poor ratings were minimal; APTS is adaptable to the needs of both teachers and pupils and provides a broad range of resources that can be selectively integrated into the curriculum; APTS contains modes of instruction that are developmentally appropriate for a wide range of learners; APTS instructional materials are interesting, engaging and effective for the target learners; the format of the teacher's book is easy to follow, the directions for implementing activities are clear, and the teacher's book itself is flexible and allows teachers to choose from a variety of activities to use with their pupils; for the most part, non-text materials are used appropriately to promote learning; and, overall, the materials for the pupils are well written, age-appropriate and compelling in content.

This study investigated the extent to which adjunct language instruction (ALI) is effective and the reasons for its effectiveness through an analysis of the perceptions of students. The beneficial effects of teaching lab report writing in English by instruction in content-based writing using genre-based materials from a concurrent physics course were confirmed by a comparison of two groups of Malay-speaking engineering students in a Malaysian university. The primary focus of the study was, however, concerned with identifying the factors that contribute to this effectiveness using structural equation modelling (SEM) as an analytical tool. Two hundred and sixty students in ten groups were instructed, also using ALI materials and asked to complete a questionnaire. Answers were then used to construct a model of the effectiveness of ALI. It was found that the type of writing instruction needed by engineering students was instruction in lab report writing and that ALI lab report instruction led to an improvement in the students' report writing. The model developed through SEM indicated that ALI provided three factors or conditions necessary for its success: the method of teaching lab report writing, the students' acceptance of the materials, and the match between the instruction and the students'linguistic proficiency.

This study investigates the status of subject pronouns in the English interlanguage of Basque-Spanish bilinguals from a minimalist perspective. The oral production of 20 participants was analyzed at two different points in their acquisition of English (Time 1:396 hours of exposure; Time 2:564 hours of exposure). The pronoun he, systematicaily adjoined to the verb at Time 1 in sentences that already feature a DP subject, is interpreted as a place holder for the agreement morphemes in the subjects' L 1s. At Time 2 the entire pronominal system is acquired and English pronouns become independent. The reanalysis of pronouns, from agreement morphemes to free elements, is argued to have a direct impact on the distribution of inflection in the participants' English interlanguage.

This study examines the generalization of instruction in foreign language learning. A group of Japanese learners of English served as participants and received special instruction in the structure of genitive relative clauses. The participants were given a pre-test on combining two sentences into one containing a genitive relative clause wherein the relativized noun phrase following the genitive marker "whose" is either the subject, direct object, or object of preposition. Based on the TOEFL and the pre-test results, four equal groups were formed; three of these served as experimental groups, and one as the control group. Each experimental group was given instruction on the formation of only one type of genitive relative clause. The participants were then given two post-tests. The results indicated that the generalization of learning begins from structures that are typologically more marked genitive relative clauses to those structures that are typologically less marked, and not vice versa.