This collection, including the proceedings of a colloquium at TESOL 1979, includes the following papers: (1) "Classification of Oral Proficiency Tests," by H. Madsen and R. Jones; (2) "A Theoretical Framework for Communicative Competence," by M. Canale and M. Swain; (3) "Beyond Faith and Face Validity: The Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix and the…

The background, methodology, and results of the Children's English and Services Study, a national investigation of educational needs and services of language minority students of limited English proficiency, are reported. This volume provides information on educational needs and services for the target population, while an earlier volume reports…

The results of a national longitudinal survey on the language proficiency of bilingual Hispanic American high school students are reported. Graphs and tables display language proficiency data for sophomores and seniors, language background data by ethnic origin, and family and educational background data by proficiency level. The survey addressed…

An ethnographic study of language proficiency in the home and school languages of bilingual children was conducted. From a qualitative sociolinguistic perspective, language proficiency, the relation of linguistic performance to community language use and attitudes, and the correlation of the sociolinguistic findings on language repertoire with…

This ten-page booklet provides a general assessment of the job situation for people who know foreign languages and a description of how to plot out a personal profile and a job profile. Two basic categories of jobs are presented, with listings of types of jobs in each: (1) jobs based mainly on language skills, (2) jobs requiring language skills…

This paper discusses a research project carried out to study and compare the reading processes of native and second language speakers of English. The procedure developed for the observation and description of the reading process and related language experience included initial diagnostic testing and taped inventories, a sequence of tutorial…

A study was carried out to ascertain whether language instructors or naive judges were more reliable in judging oral proficiency. Fifteen students were chosen from the ESL (English as a second language) center at Southern Illinois University to record a tape while reading passages in English. The tape and a questionnaire were administered to 70…

This study was undertaken to examine the suspicion that a young Greek girl in the short time span of two years had become more fluent in a second language (English) than in her native tongue. To provide a basis of comparison the tests used in this study were also given to the child's older brother who had been in the United States for…

The problem of articulation is examined, including attempts that have been made to resolve it and new proposals for its resolution. In order for the discussion to be meaningful, several relevant terms are defined: articulation, horizontal articulation, vertical articulation, inter-/multidisciplinary articulation, level, learner outcomes, and…

This is a report on a project established to develop a "common yardstick" to describe performance in one or more language skills. Descriptive scales for oral interaction were prepared as well as a general outline of scale characteristics for listening comprehension and reading. Experts in the field reviewed the project proposal and recommendations…

This evaluative and developmental study was undertaken between 1972-74 to determine the effectiveness of items used for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) in relationship to other item types used in assessing English proficiency, and to recommend possible changes in TOEFL content and format. TOEFL was developed to assess the English…

This is a comparative study of the cognitive, reading, and achievement levels of Italian Americans in bilingual programs and of their monolingual Italian and American peers. Three groups of students age 10 to 13 were matched within and across groups, according to schools, grade level, dialect, and socioeconomic status. Group I was subdivided into…

Recent studies in productive phonology among immigrants have supported the case for the existence of a critical or sensitive period in language acquisition. The present study proposes that the case for a sensitive period would be further strengthened by the discovery of comparable age effects for other linguistic abilities such as listening…

Foreigner talk is the register used by native speakers to make themselves understood by foreigners whose competence in the language is limited. Published studies on foreigner talk have dealt with phonetic variation sparingly and impressionistically. This may be due to the difficulty of imposing experimental constraints on natural linguistic events…

Thirty-eight sixth grade students (20 good and 18 poor readers) were involved in a study that examined comprehension under oral and written modes of presentation and across four expository texts that had been prepared at two levels of difficulty (easy and hard). All subjects listened to and read the texts in a counterbalanced order and afterwards…