Analyzes measures of language skills of legalized aliens using data from the Legalized Population Survey (LPS) of aliens who received amnesty under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Includes self-assessed overall speaking skills, speaking and reading in specific situations, and perceptions of the impact of language skills on job…

Looks at the washback effect in language testing, using as an example the new University of Michigan Examination for Certificate of Competency (ECCE), designed for intermediate- to upper-intermediate level learners. The ECCE can be considered an example of the movement toward achievement-oriented proficiency tests. (Author/VWL)

Explains why it is difficult for the majority of bilingual-education teachers to develop teacher-like proficiency in Spanish in the context of the United States. Explores the "subtractive" orientation of U.S. society toward bilingualism that favors replacing the native language with English. (SLD)

Reports on an ESRC-funded study of the levels of knowledge about language of first-year undergraduate student learners of French and the relationship between this metalinguistic knowledge and language proficiency and aptitude. (Author/VWL)

Discusses one form of repetition found in ordinary conversation, a form where a speaker produces a first saying, and subsequent to that, a second saying within the same turn. Proposes that this particular form of repetition is used by speakers as a storytelling technique in the accomplishment of the action of resumption. (Author/VWL)

Critically examines arguments that downgrade the importance of test reliability in English language proficiency testing of international students who attend British universities. Urges universities to move quickly to adopt an appropriate multiple- judgement approach to English language proficiency assessment and identifies alternative sources of…

As we move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, foreign language programs are hampered by inadequate curricular emphasis and negligible funding for materials or teachers. Five goals for foreign language learning include communicative competence, cultural awareness, interdisciplinary connections, cross-cultural comparisons, and…

Some experts claim that learning two languages well gives rise to mental flexibility, superior concept formation, a diversified set of mental abilities, and metalinguistic awareness. Although most researchers believe accomplished bilingualism and cognitive development are positively related, this view is not universally accepted, and the exact…

Journal writing is a useful technique for inservice and preservice education of teachers of English as a second language (ESL) as well as for teaching adult ESL learners. Journals help ESL teachers overcome isolation experienced in practice and help students acquire structural, communicative, and critical competence. (Contains 17 references.) (SK)

Evaluated the effect on French language proficiency of an integrated formal, analytic and functional, communicative approach to second language teaching in the immersion classroom. Impetus for the study arises from previous research indicating that immersion children show persistent weaknesses in their grammatical skills despite the fluent,…

Examines the influence of language proficiency and comprehension skill on situation-model construction during narrative comprehension. Studies 12 college students who thought aloud reading French and English stories for comprehension and who performed a verb-clustering task after reading each text. Finds that the students generated more…

Examines the need to keep constant the optic, the framework within which AEI definitions are written. Both the Interagency Language Roundtable Language Skill Level Descriptions and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages guidelines are revised and more fully specified. (Author/JL)

Uses the University of Pretoria as a point of reference and explicates that the use of a second language as the language of learning and teaching could be detrimental to the academic development of students as well as to the assessment of their progress, if the students concerned do not have the expected proficiency in English. Lists the language…

Examines conversational interactions between children aged 8-13 years. Participants were paired to form 96 age-and gender-matched dyads of native speakers and nonnative speakers. Results suggest that in child-child interactions the nativeness and proficiency of pairings influence the amount of negotiation for meaning that occurs. (Author/VWL)

Suggests current scholarship has paid little attention to issues of linguistic differences and cultural translatability and points out the need for language departments offering courses in cultural, ethnic, and Diaspora studies to require proficiency in another language and to cultivate responsiveness to language politics at both the local and…