This paper presents a preliminary investigation of the psycholinguistic abilities of first-year undergraduate student learners of French. In particular, it reports on the construction and use of a battery of tests of metalinguistic knowledge, language aptitude, grammatical accuracy in French, and French linguistic proficiency, and explores the…

This study investigated the extent to which home exposure (HE) to the Chinese language affected the oral proficiency of students of intermediate-level college Mandarin Chinese. In fourteen hypotheses, it was predicted that HEs would perform at a higher level than would non-home-exposure students (NHEs). Students were given a simulated oral…

This paper reports the experiences of faculty and students at Anadolu University (Turkey) who participated in Globaled, a global education, computer-mediated communication project. The project, initiated at the University of New Mexico, included faculty and students at four other American universities and those at Anadolu. The paper examines the…

This report provides information on the characteristics and work patterns of United States agricultural workers performing seasonal agricultural services (SAS) during fiscal year 1990. SAS crops include the majority of nursery products, cash grains, field crops, and all fruits and vegetables. More than 2,000 personal interviews with SAS workers…

The Arabic Proficiency Test (APT), developed in 1991-92, is described and details of its scoring are outlined. The APT is designed to measure general proficiency in literary Arabic in reading and writing, and in listening and production of standard spoken Arabic. Its proficiency rating scale corresponds to the American Council on the Teaching of…

The effects of specific guidelines in the taking and rating of tests of language summarizing ability were investigated, as well as interrater agreement regarding the rating of specific ideas within the summaries. The tests involved respondents reading source texts and providing written summaries as a measure of their reading comprehension and…

The purpose of this paper is to describe current practices in various states used to identify linguistically different students, provide a review of literature regarding recommended practices, and offer alternative practices for identifying linguistically different students. The paper provides an information base regarding current identification…

A report on the Language Assessment Battery (LAB) explains, in question-and-answer form, the causes and results of some changes made in the test norms. The LAB is a test of communicative language competence, written in English and Spanish versions and used for student placement in the New York City Public Schools. The report describes the test…

This report summarizes a follow-up study of the first cohort of 5,500 limited-English-proficient (LEP) students to be mainstreamed in Newark, New Jersey schools using English-language proficiency as the sole criterion for moving from bilingual to regular classrooms. The mainstreamed cohort was compared to regular students using basic achievement…

A study examined how the SPEAK (Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit) Test is perceived by both International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) and instructors at a major midwestern university where it is used as a screening instrument for hiring ITAs. Subjects, 24 ITAs from the social sciences and 24 ITAs from the math-based sciences who took the…

Although recent classroom research on second language acquisition has begun to focus on student discourse, there are still few studies which examine student questions and their influence in the classroom. Based on multiple observations of four classrooms in an intensive English program, the researchers investigate the factors that work together to…

A discussion of the education of West Indian immigrant students in the New York City public schools focuses on identification and assessment of this population's needs. It is noted that West Indian students represent the fastest-growing immigrant population in the city, but no educational policy has been established in the city or state to address…

The influence of discourse and pragmatic transfer in cross-cultural encounters has received little consideration in studies on the construct validity of performance tests. With the current emphasis on direct assessment of speaking proficiency following the protocol of the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), the potential importance of cross-cultural…

This manual presents activities designed to encourage speaking in elementary and secondary school French language classes at the novice and intermediate proficiency levels. Following guidelines outlined in the Utah "Foreign Language Mastery Curriculum Guide," each of the activities is identified according to the topic, level, and…

This article reports on an ethnographic research project that investigated the relationship between home language use and acquisition of academic English as determined by the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) scores. The subjects were 33 children ages 10 to 14 from bilingual Spanish-English families. Data on home language use was collected…