In the UK, Latin is often seen as an elitist subject taught largely at fee-paying schools. Over the past generation, however, great strides have been made in opening up the subject to students from all backgrounds. A major hindrance to widening access to Latin at university level is that the language can often prove challenging for students. Data…

Discusses the need to take enough time to properly teach second-language students grammatical rules and outlines major points in a first-year Spanish curriculum that stresses reviewing grammatical concepts throughout the four semesters. (18 references) (GLR)

Current popular texts are reviewed to suggest which are most useful in teaching word order in introductory Russian. Recommendations are also made about how and when to introduce word order, intonation, and sentence stress within the course. (MSE)

Most college curricula in business German are oriented to third- and fourth-year German students. Development of a course in introductory business German designed for the second year of language instruction required careful selection of materials and activities. Texts were selected for their comprehensibility for students with no business…

A collaborative effort of the business community and Kennesaw College (Georgia) resulted in the development of and implementation of an introductory commercial Spanish course that has been successful in introducing students to business practices in a Spanish-speaking environment. Previously, a translation service had been developed by the…

The reports describe the institutional context, design, and administration of language awareness courses and course components in seven British secondary schools: the Oratory School in Reading, North Westminster Community School in London, the Priory School in Barnsley, Hambrough Middle School in Southall, the Henry Box School in Witney,…

Exploratory language courses are self-contained, nonsequential, interdisciplinary courses designed to introduce students to a variety of languages and cultures. They are usually offered in middle and junior high schools, to give students in the young adolescent stage of development a chance to explore a range of academic and vocational fields.…

The materials describe Kentucky's strategy for reforming the state standards for introductory Spanish second language instruction. They begin with a course description outlining the shift in orientation from grammar instruction to development of communicative competence. A subsequent section suggests ways in which the teacher might identify…

An exploratory course was designed to give secondary school students exposure to all languages in the foreign language curriculum, in sequence, so they may decide which, if any, to enroll in. This course was begun in 1979 to counter an elitist image of foreign language courses. Course topics encouraged students to explore the languages fully by:…

The design, implementation, and evaluation of a self-paced course in first-year college French are described, focusing on student choice in deciding which of four language skills (listening/speaking, writing, reading, or culture) they would concentrate on. Considered are course organization, use of assistants and student tutors, and course…

Outlines a method for teaching a college-level introductory second-language course entirely online, using a distance learning approach that incorporates electronic messaging, multimedia, World Wide Web, and Internet assignments. The course structure, pedagogical issues, and one university's experience with on-line courseware discussed, and student…

Descriptive information and supporting documents for courses taught in the language center of a school of mines are presented here. The first is a four-semester engineering practices introductory course sequence that incorporates professional-level technical problem-solving, cooperative learning, and the preparation of written and oral…

One college French course introduces third-semester students to commercial French while simultaneously teaching contemporary French theater to the same group. The 3-week course segment is taught with two 3-week modules, and is part of a course using the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI). The commercial language module helps to build an…

The collection of papers on course design includes reports of teaching practice and classroom research by teachers of English as a second language. Papers include: "Teacher Researchers: Perspectives on Teacher Action Research and Curriculum Renewal" (Anne Burns); "From Curriculum to Courses: Why Do Teachers Do What They Do?" (Susan Hood); "The…

There are many compelling reasons for introducing foreign language study at the middle school level. Adolescents are initiating new and higher levels of cognitive processing, their curiosity is high, and they are concerned with intellectual, philosophical, biological, sociological, moral, and ethical issues. A survey of 82 middle school foreign…