In 1989, the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT) celebrated its silver anniversary at a conference designed to provide participants with an opportunity both to reflect on the past and to look at the future of foreign language teaching and of SCOLT in the light of a quarter century of experience. Seven of the papers in this volume were selected from previous writings that illustrate the trends and issues that have helped shape the direction of foreign language education over the past 25 years; three of the papers were chosen from those presented at the 25th anniversary conference; and one paper is devoted entirely to perspectives for the future. Papers and authors are as follows: "SCOLT: The First Ten Years, 1964-1974" (Herman F. Bostick); "Language Teaching: Concepts, Problems, Opportunities," covering the period 1964-1969 (Nelson Brooks); "A World Without Walls," covering the period 1970-1974 (Lorraine A. Strasheim); "SCOLT: Years of Progress, 1975-1989" (James S. Gates); "Multi-Sensory Exercises: An Approach to Communicative Practice," covering the period 1975-1979 (Theodore B. Kalivoda); "The Reusable Communication Format," covering the period 1980-1984 (Barbara Gonzalez); "The Symposium on the Evaluation of Foreign Language Proficiency: Challenges to the Profession," covering the period 1985-1989 (Albert Valdman); "Using Authentic Materials To Develop Functional Proficiency in Writing" (John I. Liontas); "Loosening the Leash on Writing: The Adult Language Learner" (Carol Strauss-Sotiropoulos); "A New Approach toward Foreign Language TA Supervision" (Ken Fleak and Carolyn Hansen); and "SCOLT: Perspectives for the Future, 1990+" (Robert Terry). References are provided with individual papers. (LB)