As part of the development of a battery of tests to determine proficiency in black standard and nonstandard speech, a test, consisting of 20 items involving verbal and pictorial cues, was developed and administered to 27 third graders and 32 sixth graders. Results were analyzed to determine test reliability and correlation with other test scores.…

Surveys programs and techniques of language teaching in Europe both in industry and business and in the schools. (CK)

A model of speech perception and production is suggested here which attempts to account for different rates of acquisition of perceptual and productive skill in the second language without assuming the existence of two separate second language grammars. (Author/KM)

A system for teaching foreign languages to adults is described. The course material is divided into categories based on the language needs of the students, and credits are given for each completed category. (Text is in French.) (PMP)

Describes a five-choice French test used for first-year university students and discusses its construction and effectiveness. (KM)

Recounts trends and classroom techniques noted in several schools visited by a University of Toronto delegation in 1972. Techniques include use of recordings, role-playing, discussion, songs, and recitation; speaker confidence was noted by the visitors. (MSE)

Social norms, situational and geographic considerations, formality of spoken language desired, and educational attitudes ranging from normative to permissive inhibit the determination of instructional criteria. (Text is in French.) (Author/MSE)

A study examined dimensions of oral proficiency curriculum and testing (OP) in American colleges and universities for the purpose of appraising the implementability of educational policy derived from them. The framework used for this policy analysis looks at the system environment, demands and resources, the process that converts demands into…

A study addressed issues of concern in the use of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)/Educational Testing Service (ETS) Language Proficiency Guidelines commonly used in determination of oral language proficiency. Specifically, potential discrepancies between the judgments of trained raters and "naive" native…

An analysis of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which requires basic English language proficiency and knowledge of United States history and civics of illegal aliens seeking permanent residency status, suggests that the Act is an example of poor language planning. The analysis has three components. First, the legalization…

This guide is intended to assist individual bilingual vocational training projects improve their approach to program evaluation. The guide presents an overall framework to be used by local project staff and evaluators to establish the scope of evaluation and give direction in meeting local evaluation needs. The guide does not provide a…

This study examines the differences of approaches to second language testing in West Germany in regard to linguistic bases, pedagogical aims, and the desired degree of standardization and empirical quality control. One approach demands a curriculum-integrated diagnosis of language development aiming at a highly differentiated description of the…

In seeking to define and describe culturally and linguistically different exceptional (CLDE) children, common problems in distinguishing a disability from a cultural or linguistic difference are discussed. The legal mandates affecting the assessment of CLDE students are summarized. An appropriate nondiscriminatory assessment process is defined in…

Emerging issues and recent literature associated with language and curriculum development for exceptional bilingual students are discussed. Studies are cited which document student gains in achievement as a result of native language, English-as-a-second-language, or bilingual education strategies with handicapped limited-English-proficient (LEP)…

Research indicates that Hispanic technical students exhibit patterns of performance in problem solving tasks that are clearly distinct from those exhibited by Anglo students. This may be because problem solvers working problems in a nonnative language are in more danger of misinterpreting problems due to sentence construction, jargon, etc., than…