Kone Ja Keele Uurimine Ning Emakeele Didaktika (Relevance of Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Studies to Mother Tongue Instruction).

This article looks at the relevance of linguistic and psycholinguistic studies to mother tongue instruction. Particularly, the semantically-oriented research of higher level units of language and speech, is considered. As some Estonian studies imply, there are indications that the application of psycholinguistic research in teaching practices would turn out to be very helpful. For example, it is suggested that a sentential model developed by Ratsep may be useful in language teaching, and that cognitive models developed by, for example, Ellis and Luria, may be applied in reading and writing instruction. The necessity of considering language-specific features in teaching methodology is emphasized. The features of spoken Estonian, such as speech rhythm and segmental duration and their role in mother tongue instruction are discussed. (Author/VWL)