Six years ago, Georgetown University's Office of International Programs, together with partner institutions, designed a large-scale, multi-year study of U.S. student learning abroad. The data support three broad conclusions with significant implications for study abroad policies and practices. This analysis concentrates for the most part on one…

The College English Test-Spoken English Test is a nationwide spoken English test designed to assess the oral communicative ability of Chinese university and college students who have undertaken compulsory English study at a Chinese university. This article describes the test and evaluates it in terms of reliability, validity, authenticity,…

This paper discusses the development of an assessment to satisfy the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Language Proficiency Requirements. The Versant Aviation English Test utilizes speech recognition technology and a computerized testing platform, such that test administration and scoring are fully automated. Developed in…

This study investigated the role of cognitive and language skills as predictors of early literacy skills in children with Specific Language Impairment. A range of cognitive and linguistic skills were assessed in a sample of 137 eight-year-old children with SLI at the beginning of the school year, and 6 months later on word decoding and reading…

This profile describes the University of Hartford's new Master of Education degree program in Aural Habilitation and Education of Hearing-Impaired Children. The Aural Habilitation and Education graduate program was conceptualized as a model partnership between Capitol Region Education Council (CREC) Soundbridge, the largest public provider of…

This paper attempts to identify certain regularities and tendencies of metafictional discourse. The focus is on the aspects of its metacommunicative component, which refers to interpersonal relations between the interactants of the narrative. What is interesting is the incorporation of typically oral modes of involvement in the self-conscious…

The Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview (SOPI) is a semi-direct speaking test that models the format of the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), an oral proficiency test used by government agencies to assess general speaking proficiency in a second language. The SOPI is a tape-recorded test consisting of six parts. It begins with simple, personal…

This textbook is a teacher's manual for numbers and arithmetic. The oral lessons in number presented in this manual are illustrative lessons for the guidance of teachers. The exercises are given in detail, to indicate clearly the nature and scope of the instruction which should be given each year. This manual also contains numerous blackboard and…

The post-colonial governments of the Pacific Islands are demanding universal literacy in European languages through the introduced social institutions of education, government, law, and economics. This shift from oral to literate societies is contributing significantly to the erosion of traditional languages and cultures. (Author/MT)

Discusses the results of a study of utterance functions in preschool children to demonstrate that, within a certain conversation, whether social or intellectual, subjects may make both social and intellectual utterances, rendering distinction between the two types of utterances very dubious. (Author/CB)

Examines spontaneous conversations between adults and children. Findings indicate that adults' altered mean length of utterance and type-token ratio were based on their age. Contrary to the researcher's expectations, the adults did not choose their words from the 10,000 most common word types in an age-dependent manner. (Author/CB)

Introduces three papers (published in this issue) contrasting the development of gestures and sign language with spoken language in order to specify the nature of language plasticity (susceptibility to change) and robustness (invariance). Focuses on question of whether these are parallel systems or an integrated system with two forms of…

The study investigated whether Nonstandard English (NSE) dialect responses to an examiner-constructed sentence completion test were congruent with and predictive of use of NSE during spontaneous conversation. It was concluded that the sentence completion test is satisfactorily congruent with and predictive of patterns of dialect used in…

Identifies certain key elements in the ACTFL/ETS proficiency descriptions that relate to language teaching and compares various methods and approaches in terms of those elements. Draws some conclusions about the way methodologies might evolve in the future. (EKN)

Describes several activities that can be used to fill short periods of class time to give language students extra language practice. Activities include generating word lists, sentences, questions, clue-words, 20 questions, hangman. All require no advance preparation. (BK)