Companies across the United States provide workplace English classes to non-native-English-speaking employees to increase productivity, retention, and on-the-job safety. Institutions that financially support the programs often require evidence of learning through standardized tests as a prerequisite for continued funding. However, the tests…

The greatest challenge inhibiting the ability of English-language learners (ELLs) to read at the appropriate grade level is perhaps a lack of sufficient vocabulary development. While extensive reading is beneficial, these students must acquire the necessary vocabulary in order to read extensively. Both vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth are…

Recognizing the specific speech act ( Searle, 1969) that a speaker performs with an utterance is a fundamental feature of pragmatic competence. Past research has demonstrated that native speakers of English automatically recognize speech acts when they comprehend utterances (Holtgraves & Ashley, 2001). The present research examined whether this…

Listening is arguably the most important skill required for obtaining comprehensible input in one's first and any subsequent languages. Given the importance of listening, the natural assumption is that listening skills are actively taught to both first (L1) and second (L2) language learners. However, this is not necessarily so in L1 instruction…

The accessibility of video technology has made it possible to utilize both the auditory and visual channels to present listening texts in the second language (L2) classroom and on L2 listening tests. However, there has been little research investigating the extent to which L2 listeners actually watch the video monitor when presented with a…

Information transfer techniques in the teaching of reading and listening in foreign language and English as a second language classrooms are discussed. Students may be presented with a written or spoken text and provided incomplete visual stimuli to be completed with information drawn from the text. The idea is that the learners are helped in…

A group of studies of children's understanding of narratives, the degree to which knowledge available in the child's first language is used in understanding second-language input, and the relationship between knowledge use in two languages as children become bilingual and acquire age-appropriate literacy skills are discussed. The subjects were…

These guidelines provide information about a program implementing State of Illinois legislation whereby school boards are empowered to grant one unit of foreign language credit to students exhibiting proficiency in a language other than English. The guide describes the types of students who are eligible for the program and the procedures for…

At this time, there are few readily available tests that measure aural structure abilities in lower-level ESL classes in adult or high school. In the past two years, however, the Ilyin Oral Interview (Newbury House, 1972,76) has been successfully adapted from its one-to-one format to a mass listening test. It is being used in San Francisco Bay…

This is a supplement to the Advanced Placement (AP) German literature course description. Its aim is both to assist teachers in planning an AP German literature course and to provide experienced AP teachers with information about other successful programs. To this end, six teachers from different high schools in the U.S. provide descriptions of…

The Natural Approach to teaching second language communication skills is described. The Natural Approach is based on the proposition that acquirers in natural situations go through three stages: comprehension, early speech, and speech emergence. Provision of comprehensible input allows beginning learners to teach themselves how to speak. Thus,…

The speech rate of French and American radio broadcasters is compared in order to provide language teachers with an optimum speed. (AM)

Examined the rate at which vocabulary was learned from reading the 400 headword graded reader "A Little Princess." To ascertain whether words of different frequency of occurrence were more likely to be learned and retained or forgotten, 25 words within five bands of differing frequency of occurrence were selected. Results show words can be learned…

This research project examined the foreign language reading process of students of French faced with expository French-language texts. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of analogies in reading passages on the reading comprehension of novice and advanced French learners. (VWL)

This article examines the effects of some of the testing procedures used in current second-language reading research on learners' performance on these tasks and suggests guidelines for developing future research instruments and classroom reading comprehension tests. (Contains 40 references.) (VWL)