Learning to swim and learning a foreign language are analagous activities, in that both are skills learned for different reasons. Few foreign language students will attain "near-native fluency;" nor will many of them become interpreters or teachers. Foreign language teachers must therefore revise priorities, restructure courses, adjust methods,…

Language Assessment Scales, LAS I, are designed for children in grades K-5. LAS I accommodates ethnic and linguistic differences and provides direct language activities taken from the popular culture of both English- and Spanish-speaking peoples. LAS I consists of two independent tests, one in English and the other in Spanish, presented largely on…

Plenary selections include reports on the difficulties facing non-native English speakers who choose ESL as a profession, the strengths and weaknesses of university-based teacher-training programs, the language situation in the United States with concentration on TESOL and language in American life, the need for communication among the major…

These 12 issues of the journal include articles on such topics as the following: classical languages; early literacy; ancient languages; study abroad; teacher training; dialects; computer uses in education; classroom techniques; illustrated dictionaries for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students; communication through poetry; bilingual…

Language Assessment Scales, Level 2 (LAS II) are used to assess the linguistic proficiency of limited-English-speaking or non-English-speaking adolescents. LAS II, like its predecessor, LAS I, provides a picture of oral linguistic proficiency based on a student's performance across four linguistic subsystems: phonemic, lexical, syntactic and…

The benefits of learning a foreign language and arguments in support of language requirements in the college curriculum are discussed. The arguments concerning the acquisition of indirect benefits not inherent in the language skill itself through the learning of a foreign language prove inconvincing and only serve to divert one's attention from…

The forty papers that make up the second part of the proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Council on Foreign Languages cover a wide range of topics relating to foreign language teaching and linguistic theory: the interdisciplinary approach to second language instruction, individualized instruction, foreign…

This journal focuses on the learning and teaching of Spanish and Portuguese. Selected articles include the following: "Word Associations in Spanish"; "A Woman of Substance? The Role of Andrea in Nada"; "Spanish for Business"; "Subtitles as a Teaching Technique"; "The Writing Workshop";…

Teaching language-minority students to read and write well in English is an urgent challenge in the nation's K-12 schools. Literacy in English is essential to achievement in every academic subject-and to educational and economic opportunities beyond schooling. Compounding this challenge are increasing numbers and diversity of language-minority…

This report summarizes Austin Independent School District's (AISD's) 2005-2006 bilingual and English as a second language programs.

The report on the status of Japanese language teaching in Australia gives a broad view of Japanese study and discusses current educational issues in some detail. An introductory chapter offers a brief overview of the history, objectives, and issues of Japanese language instruction in Australia. The second chapter details features of instructional…

The text and accompanying workbook are designed to help second language teachers explore theories of language teaching and learning, deriving a set of hypothesized principles for classroom teaching based on the concept of proficiency and suggesting classroom techniques using them. The first two chapters outline and expand on both theoretical and…

A discussion linking theory and practice in second language instruction focuses on ways of providing opportunities for meaningful interaction in language classrooms. The first part lays a theoretical foundation, looking at: the variety and evolution of instructional approaches from grammar-based to communicative; the classroom as environment for…

This journal focuses on the learning and teaching of Italian as a foreign language. Selected articles include the following: "Immigrant Women in Bologna: Themes and Problems"; "But Those Cursed Accents: Where Did They Go?"; "Modern Languages in the Primary School: The Scottish Experience"; "Suggested Strategies…

The authors conducted an experiment during the 2003-2004 school year to determine whether "On Our Way to English" ("OWE"), a product to help elementary students learn to read and speak English, was more effective in a California and a Texas school district than materials already in place. In the California study, 384 English…