The design and broad implications of the suggested Canadian multidimensional core French curriculum are outlined. The curriculum consists of four syllabi (language, communicative/experiential learning, culture, and general language education), and its key to success is the integration of the various syllabi contents. (Author/MSE)

Reviews educational trends and attitudes toward international education in the United States since the late 1950s, and explores suggestions for internationalizing higher education, involving administrative commitment and coordination, curricula, foreign language study requirements, faculty development, foreign student services, collegiate…

Describes the Canadian program of French immersion in terms of current issues in the theory of second-language (L2) learning, including the role of consciousness, optimal timing of L2 learning, communicative competency classification, and the role of the first language. Implications for L2 pedagogy and requirements for a new language pedagogy are…

This article illustrates some of the characteristics of the Chinese language from the perspective of how the language is learned by American students. The article also makes recommendations to help practitioners when teaching and designing reading and curricula for both beginning and advanced learners of Chinese. (SM)

Examines practical ways to improve the quality of Russian language instruction in higher education. The article reviews briefly chapters from two recently revised Russian textbooks, suggests a move from a grammar-based to a communicative syllabus, and notes difficulties and rewards in switching to a notional-functional syllabus. (SM)

Responding to foreign language learners' affective needs may help enhance learners' success in Japanese. American students face many linguistic and psychological barriers when learning Japanese. The article examines such affective variables as anxiety, risk taking, and motivation as significant contributing factors for differential success in…

Details errors commonly made by learners of Korean because of inadequate linguistic description or grammar explanations; suggests that one way of minimizing learner errors is to provide explicit linguistic descriptions (i.e., grammatical rules, explanations, and usage); also attention must be paid to presentation of word order and vocabulary…

Reports the results of electronic mail instruction given to K-12 foreign-language teachers during workshops. Factors found to influence workshop participants' adoption of email included training, the need to keep up with educational technology trends, availability of an easy-to-use system, hands-on experience, school support, and individual…

Describes talk-write, a form of cooperative learning aimed at enhancing fluency in writing during English-as-a-Second-Language instruction. The paper explains how to implement talk-write, discusses the logic behind talk-write, and presents some tips for talk-write in practice. Several modifications for implementing talk-write are suggested. (SM)

Considers the question of which variety of Indonesian to teach in Australia. Issues related to standardization, formality, and diglossia in Bahasa, Indonesia, the use of its many varieties across Indonesia, differences between the Jakarta dialect and the standard form, and pedagogical considerations in teaching non-standard varieties are…

Uses the systemic-functional concept of "congruence" to analyze media texts related to commentaries and reports surrounding the 1995 Australian Federal Budget. Results present insights into the complexity and inaccessibility of some media texts for students new to English in the context of economics or the Australian media. (17…

Discusses the importance of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) education in the multicultural country of South Africa, where for the majority of residents, English is the second language. Examines the variety of languages of South Africa, the language-education crisis in South Africa, and the country's need for language teachers. (SM)

Discusses the declining role of Spanish at every level of the teaching profession. Although Spanish is the most-studied foreign language in the United States, the increasing trend is to use English instead of Spanish, even in upper-level and literature classes and in scholarly writing about Spanish. (CNP)

Discusses the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) performance guidelines for K-12 foreign-language learners. The guidelines comprehensively describe the language performance of students of foreign languages across three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), following specific periods of…

Qualitative data obtained from teaching-assistant surveys, interviews, journal entries, and videotape critiques were analyzed to discover specific concerns of international teaching assistants (ITAs) about grammar and how these concerns influence their problems of language, cross-cultural communication, and pedagogy. Thematic summary of data and…