Studies show English language learners (ELLs) experience increased communication apprehension and foreign language anxiety more than primary English speakers. Strategies to better assist ELLs with their public speaking skills are needed, especially within communication centers. One way is to better understand the intercultural aspects of the ELL…

An increasingly interconnected world requires people to become versatile communicators in a variety of different settings. Language centers have a critical role to play in this process by offering language and culture training in multiple languages to students, professionals and the wider community alike. They may do so from the perspective of…

Suggests teaching communication has led to wider use of communicative activities to create contexts for English uses. Cites use of music and photographs as valuable tools for stimulating conversation. (BK)

This digest examines ways in which the foreign language laboratory can serve to support communicative approaches to language instruction by becoming interactive. Although, in one sense, this can be achieved through the acquisition of interactive hardware, this paper focuses on the pedagogical approaches to language lab use that create interaction…

Discusses the place of the language laboratory in the audiolingual, situational, cognitive, and pragmalinguistic approaches to foreign language teaching. Finds that laboratory work can help in achieving some of the goals of "communicative competence," and suggests some criteria for judging such work. (IFS/WGA)

In a discussion of video technology and language learning, video is defined as any form of language-teaching (LT) material that can be shown on a television monitor, excluding interactive video. The first part of the paper presents a possible pedagogical framework for video in language learning. The role of video is: (1) to provide a source of…

There has been a growing interest in the use of the computer in language learning because of its capacity to offer interactive learning and to handle a much wider range of activities than other educational aids. Although the traditional view of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) implies the substitution of the computer for the teacher and…

Discusses the process of integrating language laboratory work into the existing syllabus of language courses, using technical facilities, and a resident native speaker as a "voice" for recording material. (NCR)

Describes a nine-stage approach, involving a slide program and the language lab, that puts students in authentic situations and provides them with an alternative series of protocols, verbal strategies, and syntactic transactions. (Author/RM)

This presentation attempts to describe the current situation of French language instruction in the United States. As far as materials are concerned, there is a general tendency to emphasize communicative skills. Less attention is paid to literature, and more to the day-to-day activities of young French or Canadian people. Textbooks are generally…

The recent tendency in language instruction is toward the functional approach which shifts focus away from structure and internal semantics toward communicative competence and the external uses to which language is put. The implications of this trend for methodology, materials production, educational technology, and in particular for the language…

Language laboratories are especially neglected at the intermediate and advanced levels of foreign language learning. Teachers fail to avail themselves of an important teaching tool at a critical point, when the more mechanical aspects of assimilating the target language should give way to gaining an actual communicative competence in it. At the…

This second edition is a complete reworking of the 1968 text to include later views of language learning and teaching, and theories of linguistics and psychology. The text is intended particularly for use in methods classes in conjunction with observation of experienced foreign language teachers. The early chapters deal with general principles…

Describes an experimental course in communication offered to nonnative English-speaking pharmacists at the University of Maryland and reports the results of an evaluation of the course. The course was team-taught by a pharmacist specializing in communication for pharmacists and by an English-as-a-second-language specialist. (Author/SED)

This collection of articles deals with various aspects of the role of the language laboratory in language teaching, concentrating on laboratory teaching methods and materials. Topics range from evaluation of existing materials to the planning of courses and self-instruction systems, and include suggestions for the building up of a sound-library…