This article provides a rationale for and gives a detailed description of the use of student-improvised dialogues in ESL classrooms. The focus is on techniques suitable to small classes of students with advanced English proficiency. (CHK)

This book offers a much needed alternative to the more traditional texts used to teach writing instruction. Grounded in history, the book clarifies changing theoretical and practical approaches to teaching writing, critically assessing each approach in relation to the social and political movements of the day, both within and beyond the…

Modeled after the pioneering French immersion programs developed in Canada in the 1960s, foreign language immersion programs in the United States are designed to enrich the education of native-English-speaking students by teaching them all of their academic subjects in a second language. The goal is for students to become proficient in the second…

This study researched the relationship between patterns of language learning strategy used by speakers of other languages and language proficiency. Participants were 348 students of English aged 14-64 years from 21 countries enrolled in a private language school in Auckland, New Zealand. Proficiency levels varied from elementary to advanced.…

Traditional language teaching has emphasized study to the exclusion of exercise and performance. It is recommended here that the true language laboratory be the drama studio, which gives scope and impulse to every form of linquistic expression, and which has a great range of resources, media and modes of activity. (Author/JB)

Papers presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of German, Chicago, Illinois, November 25-28, 1971. (DS)

Speech presented at the Sixth Annual Whitewater Language Conference, Whitewater, Wisconsin, March 1970. Many of the ideas presented have more relevance for the United States than Canada. (DS)

An approach is presented for providing students with communication practice by relating course material to the common purposes of language use. A system for classifying communication activities is outlined in order to insure realistic, varied practice. Examples are provided in Spanish. (SW)

Three reasons given by advocates of fingerspelled English or visible English (VE) that their method of communication is superior to total communication (TC) were investigated with an observational study of 11 teachers in two VE schools and 15 teachers in two TC schools. (Author/IM)

Current brain research indicates a need for "bimodal" foreign-language instruction. This paper evaluates the bimodality of the theoretical model accepted by advocates of proficiency-oriented instruction and recommends that further research be conducted to ascertain the effects on student proficiency of a bimodal approach. (Contains 32…

Examines how six major areas of foreign language education in Florida have been significantly affected by the proficiency movement. These areas include oral testing, curricular goals, instructional materials, teaching methods, state and county initiatives, and standards of achievement for teachers and students. (11 references) (GLR)

Describes the difficulties low achieving students, many of whom are from ethnic minorities, have in dealing with the language of Business Studies in the British curriculum and suggests some strategies to raise language awareness within the discipline and increase the business vocabularies of students. (SLD)

Although a substantial amount of professional literature argues for the potential benefits of content-based instruction, limited research exists on how this type of instruction actually is appropriated, understood, and carried out in practice by foreign language teachers. This study examines the role of two sixth grade Spanish teachers' discursive…