Discusses the role of intonation in language development in relation to the use a child makes of the concept of a story. Concludes that children express much meaning through intonation, that this system may be more developed than lexical or syntactic systems, and that complex literary competencies can be developed early in life. (JOW)

Describes a model unit from the new basic German course for the Defense Language Institute designed to teach appropriate language and responses for everyday situations. (EKN)

Presents study which evaluated L2 performance of 15 bilingual preschool children in terms of basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP). Results show that several aspects of L2 proficiency by which teachers frequently evaluate students' mastery of English are poor predictors of…

Discusses producing German language plays as a way to increase student facility in spoken German and at the same time promote campus-wide contact with German language and culture. (EKN)

Lists five objectives in creating an item bank for language proficiency test items and describes the design of an item bank card. Briefly discusses item analysis and population distribution in this system and points out the numerous advantages of the system and conditions for its success. (PMJ)

Focusing on the distinction between inferential measures of language proficiency and tests which assess language skills more directly, the article discusses briefly various dimensions relevant to language proficiency testing and some of the special problems involved in the testing of equivalent proficiencies. (NQ)

This study was designed to analyze the use of communication strategies, particularly circumlocution, by speakers at the intermediate high and advanced levels of oral proficiency in Spanish. Analysis of learner discourse found that advanced speakers, more than intermediate high speakers, rely on a range of second-language-based strategies that…

Reports research that aimed to identify the foreign language and cross-cultural skill needs of workers in the tourism and hospitality industry in Australia and to develop foreign language competencies for use in industry training packages. Provides evidence for the need for foreign language skills in the industry and gives an account of the…

Evaluates the cumulative evidence on the use of syntactic complexity measures as indices of college-level second language writers' overall proficiency in the target language. Discusses implications of the findings for further research. (Author/VWL)

A study observed a significant curvilinear relationship between speaking rates and accentedness and comprehensibility judgments of utterances produced by users from a variety of first language backgrounds. A second study manipulated rates with speech compression-expansion software established that this effect was due to the rate differences rather…

Research has suggested child but not adult immigrants to the U.S. and Canada make regular progress learning English as their length of residence (LOR) increases. Compared groups of Chinese adults living in the United States who differed in length of residence LOR to assess the role of input in adult's naturalistic acquisition of a second language…

Investigates the effect of middle-ear infections on phonemic awareness on first-grade Bedouin Arab elementary school children in northern Israel. Divides 49 children who were screened according to their infant medical records into two groups: one with repeated middle-ear infection and one without. Indicates a nonsignificant effect of middle-ear…

Examined the variables related to U.S. immigrants' long-term attainment in English, their second language (L2), and their native language (L1). Differences in language proficiency among different groups studied were associated with differences in language use, language learning motivation, and cultural identification between the two groups.…