The self-instructional language program (SILP) allows students to learn, through a guided individualized study program, a foreign language not offered in the regular university curriculum. A director for the program offers the facilities and materials necessary for administering such a program. A tutor, who is a native speaker of the target…

In this paper two questions are raised: (1) Is there any meaning to current research? (2) Is meaning important to the language acquisition process? It is necessary to explore the nature of research in general to evaluate what kind of research we are doing. This leads us to consider next the content of research on human learning and on the…

First language and second language learners have to learn through making mistakes. Foreign language learners do not have to learn, to anything like the same extent, in this way. Foreign language teachers should study students' mistakes in order better to understand how they are learning and mislearning. Teachers should try to avoid language…

This newsletter begins with an editorial on the meaning of individualization in education. In his article "Individualizing Instruction for Teachers: Current Efforts in Individualization," T.B. Kalivoda describes an individualized oral language course at the University of Georgia called "Oral Spanish for Teachers." An article by…

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of error analysis in specifying and planning remedial treatment in second language learning. Part 1 discusses situations that demand remedial action. This is a quantitative assessment that requires measurement of the varying degrees of disparity between the learner's knowledge and the demands of the…

This report begins with a list of the publications of the national FLES Committee and an introduction in which T. Andersson describes how FLES programs can adopt bilingual education practices. Seventeen papers are included in the report. R. Bennett and M. Lala discuss how FLES programs can be individualized. Specific teaching techniques are…

Foreign language students often find themselves unable to produce appropriate responses in certain social situations. A contributing factor is that until recently, linguists and foreign language educators have concentrated on the student's acquisition of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon), and have not concerned themselves with…

This paper begins with a discussion of the meaning and importance of error analysis in language teaching and learning. The practical implications of what error analysis is for the classroom teacher are discussed, along with several possible systems for classifying learner errors. The need for the language teacher to establish certain priorities in…

These two books, designed for use in bilingual education programs, are parallel versions in English and in Spanish of the story of a young Puerto Rican boy who lives in New York. The story, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, is designed for oral activities with first graders and for reading and comprehension with second and third…

Implicit in the discussion of views taken by Wolfe, Geschwind, and Newmark is a claim that no learning theory based solely on "nurture" can account for the fact that language acquisition in childhood is a trait, in adulthood a skill. The child can master the language system completely, regardless of his intellectual capacity or his social…

This list contains 3,173 Italian words with indications of their relative difficulty. The collection was compiled from two earlier selections: (1) the "Knease List" of some 400,000 running words based on 40 Italian literary works published in Italy and scored according to range and frequency, and (2) the "Skinner List" constructed according to…

Foreign language study at the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences in Budapest aims to develop the ability to use the language as a native would in a particular business or profession, and to help the student become fully aware of the political, historical, sociological, and geographical background of the foreign country and the…

The term "faux intermediaire" refers to a student who has studied French for one, two, or even several years, by means of one instructional method or another, and who has some knowledge, though often insufficient and incorrect, of French pronunciation. Three levels of student pronunciation proficiency are described: the phonological, the phonetic,…

This notebook was designed to provide general guidelines for beginning teachers who are establishing a Latin program. Prepared by Latin teachers in independent schools, the notebook offers suggestions and information on the following: (1) reasons for studying Latin, (2) the age for beginning Latin study, (3) methodology, (4) testing, (5)…

Intended for use with English-speaking students, this text is based on the most frequent errors of interference and overgeneralization made by these students learning Modern Greek. The material is presented in the form of translation drills from English into Greek. Each drill begins with a sample sentence given in both languages followed by nine…