Ways to combine small classes of higher education students studying Spanish at various levels are described, including judicious use of language laboratories, staggering of the different level groups, and rotation of activities geared toward students' individual proficiency levels. (CB)

Suggests ways to help students using Systeme-D, a word processing program for creative writing in French, exploit more of the linguistic features of the program aside from the dictionary section. The importance of Systeme-D for evaluating written work is discussed, and a list of all program categories within the program is provided. (GLR)

In addition to the benefits of the oral proficiency movement, problems are seen, including flaws in the claim that the testing is proficiency based, the potential misuse of competency-based education, and the Oral Proficiency Interview's inability to test nonlinguistic barriers to communication. (Author/MSE)

The oral reading behavior of 15 English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) proficient Iranian readers was psycholinguistically analyzed. Results show that cultural schemata affected the reading comprehension and strategies of EFL-proficient readers reading expository texts. (SLD)

Examination of the effects of transferred vocabulary knowledge on college students' (N=24) acquisition of Japanese linguistic knowledge, verbal processing skills, and reading comprehension indicated that vocabulary knowledge was most highly correlated with reading comprehension. This initial advantage magnified its effects over time as task…

Provides a number of reading techniques and activities to demonstrate the feasibility of using real foreign language texts at the earliest stages of a beginning course. Examples in Dutch, Italian, Greek, Russian, Somali, and Japanese show how real texts in any language can be presented to beginners. (Author/LMO)

Investigation of the relationship between attitudes, second language proficiency, and "cultural distance" in 170 foreign students at a Norwegian university showed that cultural distance significantly influenced subjects' attitudes toward Norwegians, fellow countrymen, and an ideal person. There was no positive relationship between grades and…

Reports on the creation and trial of three new exit tests for (mostly Asian) students attending pre-course English language training. Test creation and trial involved analysis and selection of appropriate content, design of formats and test booklets, pre-testing, administration, and statistical analysis of the results. (Author/CB)

Describes an introspective study of four advanced learners of German under conditions of initial extensive exposure to the second language community. It is suggested that introspective techniques can profitably be employed with the advanced learner. (49 references) (CB)

Describes a Canadian citizenship course designed by English as a second language teachers for adult immigrants with low English proficiency levels. Course topics were chosen through consideration of their relative importance, contribution to continuity and understanding within the course, impact on daily lives, and potential practical value.…

The hispanicization of Mayan immigrants in Los Angeles is explored, focusing on the patterns of usage of Mayan, Spanish, and English among men, women, and children, and the trend toward Spanish-English bilingualism. (Author/MSE)

Describes three components of the teaching assistant program used in the screening process. Outlines the training procedures for all teaching assistants, follow-up program, program director and instructor's perspectives. Presents tables on recommendations and questions asked on feedback forms which focus on improvement and international experience…

Presents the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages' guidelines for determining proficiency in writing, speaking, listening, and reading Arabic. Definitions for both generic and Arabic proficiency skills are provided for low-, mid-, or high-novice, -intermediate, and -advanced levels. (CB)

A validation study of the "semi-direct" Chinese Speaking Test (CST) directly compared college students' performance on the test with their performance on the "live" language proficiency interview. CST provided scoring results largely equivalent to those of the live interview, although examinees perceived CST to be more…

Describes attempts to formalize and characterize a theory of communicative competence, focusing on the advantages of a preference model (which identifies and grades learning variables in order of importance) and of models developed on the premise of parallel distributed processing (which suggest that such rule-based processing are in fact gross…