This article consists of a battery of tests designed to evaluate the communicative competence of German students studying English in Volkshochschule. The battery includes tests of reading comprehension, written production, listening comprehension, vocabulary and structures, and oral production. (CFM)

Current newspaper articles are used in the form of a weekly short quiz in advanced English reading classes at Nara University of Education. The quiz focuses on the articles' immediacy as a motivating factor for Japanese students who have lost some motivation after passing the university entrance examinations. (Contains seven references.) (LB)

The possible relationship between a teacher's or individual's position on the Transmission-Interpretation dimension, locus of control, and culture was examined. A pilot study with Malaysian and United Kingdom undergraduates suggests that promoting particular methodologies may be inappropriate and ineffective. Sample questionnaire items are…

An ethnographic approach to the study of second-language lecture comprehension was used to study 30 first-year Hong Kong Chinese students in a Teaching-English-as-a-Second-Language course. Results indicate student attitudes, problems, and their approaches to overcoming the problems. (17 references) (Author/LB)

The use of accommodations has been widely proposed as a means of including English language learners (ELLs) or limited English proficient (LEP) students in state and districtwide assessments. However, very little experimental research has been done on specific accommodations to determine whether these pose a threat to score comparability. This…

A study investigated the beliefs about language learning held by eight university students enrolled in a course in Ancient Egyptian (AE), drawing on results of a larger study of eight languages. The study identifies priorities in students' general beliefs, describes effects such beliefs may have on their learning "dead" languages, and…

This paper describes a project in Scotland that investigated what factors were perceived by adult, university students as helpful or detrimental to their language learning. Questionnaires were completed by a sample of 120 modern language students of French, German, Italian, and Spanish language speakers. In-depth interviews, focusing on homework,…

As global migrations of both teachers and students have increased, so has the need to re-learn English in response to local parlances. Thus, the use of formal and informal language styles, the masking of accents, and the understanding of the differential use of certain specific words, expressions, and the like become critical for teachers and…

A study investigated the bipolar tension/relaxation factors that affect a second language learner's oral proficiency. While the traditional assumption in the field of second language acquisition is that negative attitudes toward communicative interaction naturally predicate low proficiency, the data gathered from 50 subjects studying English as a…

The aim of this study is to identify the English teachers' barriers to the use of CALL in university EFL classes. Computers have been used for language teaching ever since the 1960's. This 40-year period can be divided into three main stages: behaviorist CALL, communicative CALL, and integrative CALL. Each stage corresponds to a certain level of…

Analyzes several questions and student answers, and the graders' evaluations of student responses on each of two advanced placement examinations--the one which tests Vergil and the one which tests Catallus and Horace. The percentages of participants scoring at each grade level of the exam are also presented. (SED)

This paper reports on two phases of a study of a group of advanced TEFL (teachers-of-English-as-a-foreign-language) students. To raise their awareness of the importance of discourse intonation while they were receiving teacher training, this study focuses on examining their sociocultural and psychological inclinations in the choice of phonological…

Through examination of the discourse markers "ano" and "sono" in Japanese, this paper explores how these linguistic devices function differently in conversation. The focus of this analysis is the mental and social functions through which a speaker attempts to achieve an interpersonal rapport with a listener. In particular, the…

This paper highlights a project aimed at devising an appropriate training scheme for foreign language teaching assistants in Britain and encouraging as many universities as possible to adapt the scheme to their own institutional settings. The scheme entitled DOPLA (Development of Postgraduate and Language Assistants) originated at the University…

This study investigated whether a self-efficacy course would raise English-as-a-Second-Language learners' English ability by raising their self-efficacy. It also examined the reliability and validity of a self-efficacy questionnaire and English test. Participants were 293 Japanese college freshmen. Researchers developed two versions of an English…