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This paper addresses how rereading can improve comprehension of second language college texts, describing a pilot study that examined what happens when people reread. The study involved two female Japanese college students enrolled in a U.S. university. The women were asked to do think-aloud protocols while individually reading a section of an introductory linguistics textbook for non-specialists. They were permitted to think aloud in English or Japanese, ask questions, and use a dictionary. After reading individually, the students together read a bookmarked Web page aloud, taking turns. They were told to stop their partner whenever they did not understand something, so they could work together to understand the passage. Results suggested that there were signs of increased comprehension, at least for one of the women, though the movement was not linear. Her movements through the texts and the rereadings looked very much like the reading process as outlined in a construction-integration model of comprehension like that of Kintsch (1998). (Contains 24 references.) (SM)

This brief paper focuses on where the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field has been and where it is going regarding the studying and teaching of listening comprehension. It reviews in some detail a few of the leading texts in the field: "Building Strategies" by Abbs and Freebairn (1979); "English Firsthand: Gold Edition," Books 1 and 2 by Helgesen, et al. (1999); and the three-book "Active Listening" series by Helgesen et al., "Building Skills for Understanding,""Introducing Skills for Understanding," and "Expanding Understanding through Content" (1994, 1995, and 1996 respectively). A number of other books are also mentioned in the course of discussing these featured texts and in their own right. (Contains 20 references.) (KFT)

This paper examines disagreement over how second language learning tasks create conditions needed for language acquisition by exploring and comparing three second language acquisition theories: input-based; output-based; and interactionist. Each theory is described, and some new conclusions are drawn. It is argued that a task should: be meaningful; be cognitively appropriate; be fun; involve all participants in coming to a clear, defined conclusion; and allow for a planning stage. To accomplish the task, students need: support, through language boxes; different ways to say things; training in classroom feedback language; and pre-teaching. Contains 20 references. (MSE)