The proceedings of a conference on Asian Americans held in New York City in May 1978 are summarized in this report. The conference consisted of workshops on four issues: employment, voter participation, youth, and the elderly. In the workshop on employment, issues discussed included the participation of Asians in the health system and in the…

THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION PROFICIENCY TESTS PROVIDE THE NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WITH AN ALTERNATIVE WAY OF JUDGING THE COMPETENCY OF POTENTIAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS WHO MAY LACK COLLEGE CREDIT OR WHO HAVE FOREIGN DEGREES. ON THE NATIONAL LEVEL, THESE TESTS CAN HELP RAISE THE LEVEL OF LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION BY SETTING MINIMUM…

In 1978 a study was initiated to determine the use and importance of foreign language proficiency in Pennsylvania businesses. Two hundred eighty-four respondents represented the commercial, health, and municipal domains. Positive responses (indicating employment of personnel skilled in languages other than English) were received from 41% of…

Three years after a General Accounting Office review found that the Department of State and the U.S. Information Agency were not meeting their overseas language requirements, opportunities were still identifiable for improving this situation. The Department of State met the problem largely by lowering required proficiency levels rather than by…

The Echoic Response Inventory for Children (ERIC) is part of a test battery which includes the Expressive Vocabulary Inventory (EVI) and the Children's Auditory Discrimination Inventory (CADI), designed to assess language skills of disadvantaged children. These tests also seek to provide data that can help determine what changes in language…

An examination of the relationship between high school English grade point average and the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency scores, for a sample of English as second-language (ESL) high school students in American Samoa, indicated the validity of the test with ESL students. (Author/JKS)

Language learning is not maximally efficient without intentional practice following tests that evaluate student achievement of an instructional objective. Post-evaluation practice must be at increasing intervals to maximize student retention, and must sometimes be unscheduled, to achieve automatic language usage. A distribution schedule and types…

Describes proposed oral achievement test for elementary Arabic based on teaching material used at University of Michigan. The rationale for testing oral skills at the elementary level and previous types of oral testing of Arabic are outlined. A test facsimile and sample items are provided, including an exploration of the test's format, scoring…

Interviewed 104 older American residents of Paris, France. Found that 70 percent had medium to high levels of sociocultural integration and 92 percent had adequate proficiency in French language. Concluded that congruence of Paris environment and individual values had implications for sociocultural integration; declines in health, income, and loss…

Discusses several concerns of translating "Languages of Limited Diffusion" (LLD) including: (1) the lack of knowledge of the language; (2) the role of word-for-word or computer translation; (3) translating from a translation or from the translator's native language; (4) common elements in the source and target languages; (5) uncommon languages'…

Studied the type of programed instruction (linear, branching, assigned textbook passages, or reception learning) that can be used most effectively by Nigerian secondary school students; explored which categories of students (high or low English language achievement) can use programed instruction to greater advantage. (GC)

Discusses the theoretical foundations of discourse analysis and intonation and emphasizes that intonation has received little attention in the communicative competence or proficiency movements, despite the fact that intonation is a powerful tool for negotiating meaning, managing interaction, and achieving discourse coherence. (CB)

A review of Hunt's research to find ways of measuring the growth of syntactic proficiency in American school children explores the possibilities of applying these measures to groups of British native and non-native speakers of English and developing them for use in teaching and testing. (Author/CB)

Tests empirically the model of second-language reading proficiency promoted by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Reader developmental levels are not consistent with the ACTFL hierarchy of text types and reading skills. Graphs compare hypothesized and obtainable results. (LMO)