Describes a pilot project whereby oral proficiency interviews were administered to students studying fourth- and fifth-year year German at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts. The interviews were based on techniques taught at the American Council on the teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service Oral Proficiency Summer…

Reports responses from 83 schools in a survey that covers the number of languages required and the means of satisfying those requirements. (CRH)

Suggests how transcripts of academic lectures and pseudo-cloze exercises developed from these transcripts may be used to help foreign students to become aware of the skills (e.g., recognition of conventions and cues which signal important information in lectures) involved in the process of listening to lectures. (SL)

Discusses physiological, psychological, and social effects of speed of articulation and introduction of both productive and receptive fast-talk exercises at early stages of language learning. By helping English as a second language students with the phonological, functional, semantic, and syntactic components of English, students move closer to…

Focuses on the changes necessary in Dutch foreign language teaching policies. Cites the need for a greater differentiation of objectives in learning languages. The relevance of the European context to these policies suggests international communication as one essential goal, whether the approach involves multilingualism or a small number of…

This article presents a practical approach to assessing Spanish-English bilingualism in Mexican-American children entering school. The general aim of bilingual assessment is discussed. The approach to assessment includes a method of selecting subjects, the use of a sociolinguistic survey, and tests for measuring bilingual communicative competence.…

This article discusses the use of commercial television programs as a tool for teaching French. (CLK)

This survey provides information on teacher exchange programs, and positions as teacher or teaching assistant in English in public and private schools in Germany. (CHK)

The work we report focuses on utilizing linguistic profiles of mathematics, science and social studies textbook selections for the creation of reading test specifications. Once we determined that a text and associated tasks fit within the parameters established in Butler et al. (2004), they underwent both internal and external review by language…

This book presents a range of views on the concept of the native speaker, considering psycholinguistic, linguistic, and sociolinguistic aspects. It examines the Critical Period Hypothesis; the role of the standard language; the kinds of knowledge (metalinguistic, discriminating, communicational, and skills) that the native speaker possesses; and…

This study investigates closing patterns for an institutional conversation in an ELP (English Language Program) at a university in the United States, noting the relationship between the closing patterns of the participants and their level of proficiency in English. By indicating that ESL learners, especially beginners, face difficulty in closing…

The distribution of person fit indices is not easy to describe in tests where the item sample is too small to conform to a theoretical asymptotic statistical distribution, particularly the normal N(0,1). In practice, it is always the fact and, consequently, it is difficult to get the critical percentile value indicating person misfit. First, we…

The Victorian ESL (English as a Second Language) Framework is currently undergoing renewal as part of the reaccreditation process. This ESL curriculum framework, developed in Victoria, Australia, is currently used in TAFE Institutes and private and community adult ESL programs. It provides a framework for 10 certificate courses across three…

This study investigated whether Chinese students' writing expertise would be closely related to their English writing expertise. Participants were six male and five female Chinese college graduates. All participants were asked to write two types of papers (descriptive and persuasive) in both languages. The first paper involved describing their…

This paper presents an ethnographic record of one teacher's ongoing experience trying to understand the kinds of language ideologies constructed in the classroom about the Korean language and culture. The paper describes a class of Korean-American college students in a Korean language class who had never successfully achieved native fluency in…