[EDLING:1420] SLA Sources

[ellism2 at SAS.UPENN.EDU]

Hello all,

My name is Michael Ellis.  I am currently in the planning stages of some
research concerning English education in Japan for my senior thesis.  I’ll be
focusing on syntax of spoken language, and how different learning situations
(classroom vs. cram schools vs. experience abroad) lead to different levels of
proficiency in producing complicated English tense patterns.  Because Japanese
only has two different tenses, less advanced students tend to make many
mistakes when speaking in English, with a large spectrum leading up to the
students who speak with near-native proficiency.  My goal is find what methods
of instruction and learning environments might be more effective.

I want to start collecting data quickly and take advantage of my time in Japan
(until late June), but as very little on second language acquisition is offered
at my home school, I don’t feel prepared to lay out a methodology and
hypothesis quite yet.  It has been difficult for me to maneuver the library
here in Japanese, so I thought I might ask this listserv for some advice to
make sure I don’t miss any critical sources.  Are there any papers on SLA I
must not overlook in preparation for this type of research?

Thanks very much

Michael Ellis