Describes conversation activities that can help students experiencing difficulty in French oral language increase confidence and speaking skills. Small groups of students form conversations around key words, and then expand the conversation for larger groups, incorporating more words and structures. (CB)

A description of a German conversation class organized around video production projects includes the pedagogical rationale, course format, and detailed descriptions of individual taping projects. (17 references) (Author/CB)

"Xiangsheng," a Chinese oral art form, are written and performed using idiomatic, colloquial Beijing speech and thus provide excellent material for studying spoken Chinese. Suggestions for preparing xiangsheng as teaching materials and teaching xiangsheng in the classroom are offered. Chinese character transcription, pinyin transcription,…

Describes an activity for use in the conversational English-as-a-foreign-language classroom. The activity involves having each student say one or two sentences that continues a story being made up as the activity goes along. Students were positive about the activity, because saying only one or two sentences helped them not to feel pressured or…

Analyzes the importance of conversational gambits and routines in achieving second language communicative competence and then presents a model which uses telephone conversations as a means of achieving this goal. Exercises for drilling and testing gambits and routines are also presented. (Author/CB)

Presents an approach for developing oral proficiency in the advanced conversation course that proposes, as an organizing principle, the use of Swales's concept of genre as a class of communicative events that share a communicative purpose. It is concluded that focus on genre can improve proficiency performance and articulation. (eight references)…

Presents an oral, contextual approach to Spanish subjunctive study (for elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels) and describes sample exercises for: verbs of implied command, impersonal expressions implying command or judgment, verbs of emotions, expressions of wish and desire, expressions of doubt and denial, adjective clauses, and…

Discusses computer-mediated communication (CMC) and computer-assisted language learning and explains how second language learners become communicatively fluent through a text-based CMC setting. Highlights include how asynchronous and synchronous CMC can support learners' cognitive processes; and models for combining text-based CMC with spoken…

The use of speech or language produced by native speakers in real situations for teaching oral communication skills in the second language classroom is described. Three sample lessons, based on the author's teaching experience in Japan, are presented. All lessons used material called "The Bellcrest Story," produced by the British…