Suggests the use of jokes in the English as a second language class to promote oral fluency, awareness of sociolinguistic rules, and understanding of certain values in American culture. (CFM)

The purpose of this highly quantitative study is to manifest the direct effects of communicative learning in the context of public high school teaching in Japan. A small-scale (n=12) experiment was conducted to reveal intergroup differences. The experiment was based on the assumption that there are clear differences in the amount of input from and…

Summarizes an interactive computer-based reading program developed to enhance the linguistic proficiency of intermediate language students and increase their awareness of Francophone cultures. The article describes the program's glossing capabilities and its tracking device and summarizes the pilot research that preceded the program. (38…

A classroom research project in English-as-a-Second-Language vocabulary development, conducted in an English language school in Brazil, is described. The study had two major aims: to help students build a large lexicon for future use, and to encourage students to be responsible for their own learning by teaching strategies for learning vocabulary.…

This article describes creative drama workshops designed to improve the oral facility of immigrant children in Toronto. The aims of the program were: (1) to help the students become less self conscious; (2) to create opportunities for students to develop self-confidence; and (3) to implement evaluative instruments to prove the hypothesis that…

This book addresses what kind of analysis of spoken language is appropriate to the assessment and fostering of fluency at the various stages of a student's development. It is easy to define fluency in general terms, but it is difficult to discern what linguistic and paralinguistic options are involved. This book begins by exploring perceptions of…

Despite several years of English language instruction, most Japanese students remain unable to produce nor comprehend more than rudimentary English. In order to overcome this problem, students must be motivated to participate in tasks designed to get them to use English communicatively--a difficult task in a country where students typically remain…

Affirms the advantages to the child of early immersion second language learning programs. The second language proficiency of English-speaking Canadian students who received all instruction in French and English-speaking American children who received all instruction in Spanish surpassed that of students in more traditional language programs. (PMJ)

Studied code-switching between Papiamento and Dutch in bilingual parent-child reading sessions in Antillian migrant families in the Netherlands. Findings reveal that intimate code-switching within a clause is characteristic of fluent bilinguals and that the type of code switching is predominantly insertional (with Papiamento as the dominant…

This paper reviews the history of contrastive analysis (CA) against the background of its objectives and its present problems and presents an outline of procedures which seem to be necessary to make the methods meet the objectives of applied CA. CA in the United States was closely connected with structuralism, which was an obvious cause for later…

A manual for use in training French and Spanish language examiners at the Foreign Service Institute is presented here. After a discussion of the history of the language proficiency test and of the testing procedure and evaluation techniques, the following topics are covered: (1) language proficiency ratings based on the absolute criterion of the…

Book two, part two, of an intermediate-advanced level German refresher course for college students is presented. The volume consists of 42 lessons of text material and 42 prerecorded tapes. A typical unit is made up of spontaneous dialogues, substitution drills, and tests. A dialogue for listening is a short conversation between German speakers…

A foreign travel program for eighth grade French language students from Shoreham, New York was developed to provide language speaking practice in Quebec, Canada. The program was designed to allow students to spend as much time as possible speaking the language and interacting with the people. The following "survival through speaking"…

A step-by-step description is presented of how the teacher of English as a foreign language can add a question-and-answer period to the oral report. The technique allows for the participation of all students and brings the exercise closer to real conversation. (SW)

Suggests five techniques to be used by the teacher of English as a second language to initiate communication in the classroom: (1) the interview; (2) the mutual interview; (3) the class story; (4) the journal; and (5) role-playing and problem-solving. (CFM)