Advertisements can be used in many ways to facilitate the teaching of a commercial language. If reproduced as slides or other visual aids, they serve as a visual warm-up exercise for each class period, either reinforcing previously discussed topics or introducing new ones. Catchy headlines in commercials promote rapid expansion of vocabulary and…

A University of New Mexico program in Spanish for professionals began in 1981 as a Spanish and Portuguese program to provide language training for personnel in health care, business, law, and education. The program encountered early problems of uneven enrollments, funding difficulties, and some lack of interest from the campus professional schools…

An intensive, one-semester introductory Spanish course developed for nursing and other health-care professionals is intended to make possible spoken communication in Spanish, at least on a rudimentary level. The course encountered initial problems of rapidly growing enrollment, lack of appropriate text, and limited scheduling. However, student…

The papers related to Canadian language policy at an international conference are presented: "Language Policy in Canada: Current Issues" (Juan Cobarrubias); "Multiculturalism and Language Policy in Canada" (Jim Cummins, Harold Troper); "Defining Language Policy in a Nationalistic Milieu and in a Complex Industrialized…

This study used the residual gain statistic in reading comprehension research in English as a second language to assess individual differences in improvement accruing from learning and training. The subjects were 34 foreign college students with a variety of native languages. A 35-item cloze test with every eighth word eliminated, but with the…

The United States has a large and rapidly growing population of limited English-proficient (LEP) students and adults. This population presents a distinct challenge to vocational educators. Some insights learned during the past decade suggest beneficial approaches to this problem. Four trends in current second-language acquisition research and…

An approach to teaching logical organization of ideas in English through paragraph writing is presented. The approach is designed for Japanese high school and college students, for whom native language writing strategies and objectives are different from those of English-speakers. Four overall goals of the process of paragraph writing include: (1)…

A collaborative effort of the business community and Kennesaw College (Georgia) resulted in the development of and implementation of an introductory commercial Spanish course that has been successful in introducing students to business practices in a Spanish-speaking environment. Previously, a translation service had been developed by the…

A technique adopted for a course in advanced conversation in English as a second language used a combination of writing, acting, and self-monitoring activities to teach a variety of culturally valuable skills: narration, expression of opinion, and discussion of common issues in culturally sensitive ways. Students write plays as a group about…

Pennsylvania State University's Department of French and Institute of Public Administration have responded to the need for language-trained civil servants by developing a dual master's degree program in French and public administration. Degree requirements include the full requirements for each program, with six credits from each curriculum…

This Title VII program completed its second year of a 3 year continuation project to provide students with limited English proficiency instruction designed to help them achieve English language proficiency. The program also included a staff development component. Students were in Lau categories A, B, and C (non-English speaking, English as a…

Instructional materials for siSwati are designed for Peace Corps volunteer language and cultural training. The materials are in five parts. Part 1 contains bilingual readings containing factual information on Swaziland, including history, geography, industry, and its neighboring countries. This section is bilingual, with one page in siSwati and…

A set of instructional materials for Mende is designed for Peace Corps volunteer language instruction and geared to the daily language needs of volunteers in Sierra Leone. It consists of two parts, a series of lessons on situations emphasizing vocabulary development through dialogues and drills, and a series of grammar lessons. Only the first…

A teacher's guide for Susu is designed for Peace Corps volunteer language instruction and geared to the daily language needs of volunteers in Sierra Leone. It contains a section on Susu phonology and 28 lessons on these topics: situation-specific greetings, basic greetings, introducing a friend, the market, travel and getting directions, visiting…

Regular issues of "Per Linguam" appear twice a year. The document consists of the six regular issues for the years 1985, 1986, and 1987. These issues contain the following 32 articles: (1) "SALT in South Africa: Needs and Parameters" (van der Vyver); (2) "An Analysis of SALT in Practice" (Botha); (3) "SALT and…