EFFECTS OF THE SECOND LANGUAGE ON THE FIRST. Vivian Cook (Ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2003. Pp. viii + 268. $89.95 cloth, $35.95 paper.

This volume represents the first attempt to assemble studies of the effects of the second language (L2) on the first (L1). Underlying the design of the book is Cook's (1991) notion of multicompetence, which refers to knowledge of two or more languages in one mind. From various perspectives and to varying depths, the authors bring evidence to bear on the conceptualization that the L1 of an L2 user is not encapsulated but susceptible to the L2 influence.

Digital educational game-based apps can be effective in helping young children develop language skills, particularly when paired with formal instruction. However, we need to know more about how educational games benefit learning in the absence of formal instruction, given children’s proficiency with and willingness to use mobile devices anytime, anywhere. This study uses a randomized controlled trial design to investigate the impact of a digital app—ABCmouse English—on L2 learning of seven- and eight-year-old Japanese children over a 16-week period. Pre- and post-assessments of the children’s English proficiency, together with an analysis of when and how they played with the app, were used to shed light on the relationship between the children’s in-app game choices and their language learning outcomes. Surveys and interviews with parents provide qualitative insights and information about the experiences of children and their families while using the app and its impact on their development as language learners.

We present a learner corpus-based study of English article use (“a”/“the”/Ø) by L2 learners with four typologically distinct first languages (L1s): German and Brazilian Portuguese (both have articles), Chinese and Russian (no articles). We investigate several semantic and morphosyntactic factors—for example, specificity, prenominal modification that can affect article use. Our analysis of 660 written scripts from the Education First Cambridge Open Database confirms the lower overall accuracy of learners with no-article L1s. Our main finding is the differential effect of specificity on definite and indefinite articles: learners tend to associate specificity with “a,” which implies article omission with nonspecific indefinite singulars and overuse of “a” with specific indefinite mass nouns. Prenominal modifiers further contribute to perceived specificity, leading to article overuse with modified indefinite mass nouns. However, in definite contexts, prenominal modifiers are associated with increased article omission.

In the introduction to The power of tests: A critical perspective on the uses of language tests, Elana Shohamy raises the following questions: What is the meaning of a test for test takers, parents, teachers, and school administrators? What are the short- and long-term consequences of tests on the lives of individuals? What are the motivating factors behind the administration of language tests? What are the politics of the tests? These kinds of questions logically arise when the examination of testing includes a concern with the use of tests by educational institutions, policy makers, and society at large. Focusing primarily on the misuse of tests, this volume chronicles both intended and unintended test consequences.

This paper summarizes some characteristics of Navajo and Western Apache speakers' tense switching in English and some observations on native English speakers' tense switching. It is suggested to teachers who have Southwestern Indian students in their classes to avoid restricting students to one particular tense in an artificial manner and to approach interlingual tense switching within a contrastive framework.

This paper responds to David Birdsong's discussion of the positions and the data presented in Felix (1988) and Zobl (1992). We attempt to clarify a number of misconceptions that we feel characterize his discussion and elaborate further on the performance and competence issues contained in the earlier papers.

DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL-LEVEL LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY. Betty Lou Leaver and Boris Shekhtman (Eds.). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 308. $65.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.

In the face of a vast array of non-English culture and language media, increases in diaspora populations in the United States and elsewhere, the importance of global circuits of capital (and hence global communicative practices), and the increasing penetration of world events into the lives of Americans (with its implications for national security), one would surmise that developing professional-level additional language expertise would not be the exception that it is in the United States. Lambert (2001) described the low percentage of American students who study a foreign language at the advanced level and estimated that only 3% of those studying commonly taught languages such as Spanish or French enroll in advanced-level courses. Although support for less commonly taught languages (LCTL) such as Arabic have recently increased, students enrolled in LCTL programs are presumably even fewer in number. It is also clear that advanced-level coursework occupies only a fraction of most language programs' overall investment of resources. In a fiscal climate that makes the academy increasingly accountable to private sector logic, few interested students make developing advanced language programs a nonutilitarian choice.

Maintaining A Minority Language: A Case Study of Hispanic Teenagers. John Gibbons and Elizabeth Ramirez. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2004. Pp. x + 240. £25.95 paper.

On reading the title of this volume, the reader might assume that the study involves teenagers in a large urban area of the United States. Potential readers will be surprised to realize that this book is about Hispanic teenagers in Sydney, Australia, and the efforts of these teens and their families to maintain their Spanish language. The authors, Gibbons and Ramirez, argue that the understanding of minority language maintenance and shift “requires the examination of the degree of acquisition of various elements of proficiency, including spoken language, basic literacy skills, grammar and high register” (p. l). Thus, having set a rather rigorous benchmark for themselves, they proceed to study 106 Hispanic teenagers to determine the degree of maintenance of Spanish among them as well as their attitudes toward their bilingualism.