This study discusses the effect of early instruction in French in eight elementary schools on subsequent student achievement at the end of grades 7, 8, and 9. The Common Concepts Foreign Language Test in French was the criterion of achievement for the seventh-grade students. Results give averages, differences, and significance of the differences…

This report contains experiment results obtained from a comparative study of two groups of seventh grade students learning German in Sweden. The main objectives of the investigation, which lasted one school year, are: (1) to investigate possible achievement differences in German between similar groups of students when one group is instructed…

The experiments outlined in this paper assess the relative effectiveness of two approaches to teaching foreign language grammar to adults. One approach, called the "Implicit Method," is based on the audiolingual habit theory of language learning. Grammar is taught inductively through the reading of dialogues and practice with carefully…

An educational experiment describing the development of prevocational English language and literary materials for non-English-speaking students is described in this report. The primary purpose of the project was to produce and to field test instructional materials for basic English language and literary skills via a series of supplemental,…

The reading laboratory has been developed to supplement intensive reading work for adult foreign students developing English-as-a-second-language skills at the American Language Institute. The laboratory is designed to suggest to students that there is a variety of reading tasks and a variety of reading strategies related to the tasks, to offer…

Beginning with a brief review of the growth of the audiolingual method of foreign language instruction in the United States of America, this paper examines implications and lessons drawn from an educational experiment in language instruction known as the Pennsylvania Report. The text of a memorandum to school administrators in Pennsylvania by the…

This paper considers language development among children and discusses the influence of the learning environment in the acquisition of language use as distinct from language structure. The results of the five studies reported here suggest that the child is aided by what he is encouraged to say, not simply by what he hears, and that adults seem to…

In order to gain some insight into the issue of optimum age for second language learning, the experiment described in this report was based on the negative hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the ability of randomly selected subjects, kindergarten through grade six, to imitate critical sounds and sound clusters embedded in words…

This document discusses in detail the development and operation of a language program implemented in the Philippines, beginning in 1957, with the assistance of the University of California, Los Angeles, through the Rockefeller Foundation. The program faced a number of difficulties including a school system in the process of post-war rebuilding, a…

This interim report on an experimental program to increase student motivation to learn French at the Cultural Centre of Intensive French (CCIF) examines objectives, evaluation procedures, and results of the experiment. Part 1 contains sections on: (1) French achievement in Ottawa, Canada, grade 8 classes, (2) Pimsleur listening comprehension test,…

This evaluation report presents the details and results of an experimental, compensatory language program designed to improve the standard English language facility of young aboriginal children on the assumption that this would contribute to improvement in reading and other aspects of academic performance. The pilot program was administered during…

The experiment described in this report investigates two basic questions concerning beginning reading instruction to speakers of nonstandard dialects. 1--Will learning to read be facilitated if the primary reading material is phrased in the actual word patterns and grammatical structure used by the children in their oral speech? 2--Will learning…

This experiment examines a new psychological approach to foreign language study at the elementary school level. A principal objective is to determine the nature and importance of second language learning motivation in monolingual societies devoid of the daily living example of the target language and culture. A five-year French language sequence,…