Describes Audio-Lectal Practice, a technique which offers systematic and controlled practice in connected discourse while emphasizing oral discourse features of rhythm, tempo, pausing, and suprasegmental patterns. Students listen to, read along with, and imitate recorded texts concurrently. Such practice facilitates oral fluency in the target…

Describes a research project using cloze procedure to measure language proficiency. Discusses test construction and various approaches to test scoring, concluding that results suggest a need for further examination of the random cloze format and acceptable scoring as a means to determine student proficiency in German. (MES)

Defines three previously overlooked subpopulations of English proficient students (English superior, equally limited, non-English superior) in terms of their relative proficiency in English and the home language. Presents data and clarifies assessment terms, criteria, and procedures used in relative proficiency assessment. Makes program…

Reports a study wherein a foreign language aptitude test was used to group German students beginning English language instruction in three types of German intermediate schools. Students were tested periodically to determine if the groups originally established were maintained. By the end of the second year, they were not. (PMJ)

Describes the history and present state of teaching English in Hungary. The status of English is discussed, along with the study done by the International Association of the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The study, in part, investigated achievement in Hungarian English classes. Educational policy and teacher training are also discussed.…

Presents evidence against the "deficit" interpretation of Black dialect and argues instead for at least one version of the "difference" hypothesis. (FL)

Ten objective measures of writing proficiency were used to evaluate advanced ESL students' compositions. Only those objective measures taking the absence of errors into account discriminated among holistic evaluations of the compositions by experienced ESL teachers. (PMJ)

Reports on a study which sought to identify and examine the effects of certain learning strategies--practice, monitoring, and inferencing--on second language learning. (AM)

This article reports on a series of experiments designed to determine the validity of the Cloze test as a measure of the English language proficiency of nonnative speakers. (CFM)

This study examined the relationship between external language behavior in the form of intensity of verbal interaction between the learner and his language environment and the effects of this interaction on language abilities as measured by language tests. The subjects were adult learners of English as a second language. (CFM)

An oral situational structural test developed for ESL students is discussed. This article proposes that tests can be used as motivational instruments and as teaching instruments. Properly used, tests enable students to see a link between ultimate language proficiency and immediate exam passage. (CHK)

Six articles on the subject of testing are reviewed. The following themes are discussed: cloze tests, spelling tests and testing the student's total vocabulary. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Discusses the needs of language-minority students and explains the difference between progress in basic interpersonal communication skills (surface fluency) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (conceptual-linguistic knowledge). Strategies are provided for special educators in planning instruction, increasing comprehension during…

Critiques an article cautioning that children may perform poorly when questioned by professionals about emotional or painful events. Asserts that young children have the vocabulary to report feelings of distress or anger, even if they sometimes fail to make use of that vocabulary in particular contexts. (CR)

Argues that the focus of foreign-language instruction needs to be on students learning to become more efficient in using another language. This focus means charting each student's progress along the continuum of proficiency from novice to intermediate to advanced levels, not just checking off a list of what has been taught from the curriculum. (CK)