"Intermediate" here means knowing enough English to be able to take at least a partial academic load, but not being able to "pass out" of the required university English as a second language requirement. The normal situation for the intermediate at the university is to be enrolled in at least one ESL class in addition to one or more subject matter course.

The research cited here deals exclusively with the effect of instruction on the acquisition of syntax and morphology. Until recently, little work had been done that examined the effect of instruction on the acquisition of pronunciation. Purcell and Suter (1980) report that acquisition of pronunciation of English as a second language was predicted by the following factors: (1) The acquirer's first language (speakers of Arabic and Farsi were superior to speakers of Japanese and Thai); (2) The amount of interaction with English speakers; (3) Performance on a test of phonetic ability; and (4) The degree of concern the speaker had about his accent. Factor (2) appears to be related to comprehensible input, while (3) and (4) may be related to learning. (1) reflects the consequences of falling back on the first language. The amount of formal classroom training in ESL, however, did not relate to pronunciation ability, even when courses were specifically aimed at teaching pronunciation.

Some studies seem to show that age of arrival (AOA) predicts second language attainment for children--that is, that the child who arrives at age six, for example, will attain higher levels of proficiency than the child who arrives at age ten. While AOA does predict ultimate attainment for children as a group as compared to adults as a group, closer examination reveals that AOA per se is not a factor for children considered alone. In cases where AOA seems to be a factor, it can be argued that LOR, and ultimately CI, is really causative. Cummins (1980) has performed such a reanalysis of Ramsey and Wright's data on 1,200 immigrant children in Canada (Ramsey and Wright, 1974), and reaches this conclusion, noting that when AOA is controlled in Ramsey and Wright's data, children with longer LOR's perform better in a variety of tasks. Cummins also found that when LOR is controlled, however, children with younger AOA's are not necessarily better--in many cases, the opposite is true. Minoura (1979) can also be reinterpreted. She studied 44 Japanese children who had been in the United States for a range of one to eight years. While LOR predicted attainment (r = 0.79), so did AOA (r = -0.75)(a sentence imitation test was used). All the children in the sample had arrived in the United States at about the same time, however, so LOR and AOA were highly correlated (r = -0.95). It thus may be argued that LOR and thus comprehensible input, was the true causative factor. (According to my calculations, the correlation between AOA and SLA reduces to r = 0.005 when the effect of LOR is removed!) The Heidelberg project, discussed in the text, also reports a relationship between AOA and SLA, this time among adults taken as a group. This also seems to be a confound, since older subjects seemed to spend less time speaking German (r = -0.32 between AOA and reported leisure time use of German). Partial correlation partialling out the effects of interaction with German speakers reduces the reported correlation of -0.57 between AOA and SLA to r = -0.49. This could (and should) go even lower with a more reliable measure of the amount of comprehensible input subjects actually got.

Pidginization "occurs when speakers of different languages come into limited contact and an auxiliary vehicle of communication develops to facilitate interaction among them." (Schumann, 1978b, p. 40). Secondary hybridization is a form of pidginization that occurs if a "standard form" of a target language is available. It persists only if speakers remain at social and psychological distance from speakers of the norm. (From Whinnom, 1971, cited by Schumann, 1978b).