A discussion of the use of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines in teaching and testing less commonly taught languages (LCTL) describes a two-year project on that topic and looks at specific problems with four languages or language groups. The project was to familiarize LCTL teachers with the…

Six hundred, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old bilingual, rural, and urban children from southwestern, midwestern, eastern, and southern United States participated in a national study of Spanish/English bilingual development. Half of these children completed the English version of CIRCO (1980) sub-test 10-C, a productive language measure that requires…

A bilingual prediction study was conducted in order to gather information that school districts could use in making decisions about instructional transition for students in transitional bilingual programs. In 1976, 115 third graders were tested in reading, verbal ability, and aural comprehension in both English and Spanish. Attitude toward…

This paper reports on Educational Testing Service research studies investigating the parameters critical to reliability and validity in both the direct and indirect writing ability assessment of higher education applicants. The studies involved: (1) formulating an operational definition of writing competence; (2) designing and pretesting writing…

Since standardized tests of English foreign language seem to lack external validity, a new test, the New Cloze Test (NCT), was developed and validated as a placement test for foreign students. Details of the test design, including paragraph preparation, word deletion, and recommended methods for administration and scoring are discussed. Subjects…

This essay considers three areas in Spanish grammar that generally cause difficulty to English-speaking learners: the use of "ser" and "estar," the difference in use between the preterite and imperfect tenses, and the use of the subjunctive. Like most problematic grammatical elements in any language, these points are difficult for non-native…

This paper discusses the role of intelligence in language comprehension. In the study reported, an attempt is made to determine how much of the variability in English reading scores of non-native speakers of English can be predicted on the basis of intelligence alone. In the study, three measures of reading comprehension are used: a traditional…

A study was conducted that was designed to determine if experienced ESL (English as a second language) teachers, working in pairs, can reach the same judgments regarding the oral proficiency of non-native speakers of English and to determine the reliability of such judgments. In addition, the question of whether different sets of judges rate…

This packet is the fourth of five developed as a set of self-appraisal instruments with which teachers (and others) can systematically examine their instruction methods in communication skills. The packet contains forms for teachers, students, administrators, and parents addressing two levels of specificity: responses to the overall communication…

This study is divided into two major sections. The first, the study of language in a sociolinguistic perspective, includes: (1) an analysis of the attitudes associated with linguistic variation, and a review of (2) studies conducted in French Quebec, (3) the linguistic and cultural deficit theories, (4) the theory of cross-linguistic and…

This report presents results of research conducted in conjunction with a Swedish project focused on the bilingual instruction of immigrant children. The main aim of the project was to construct a model for teaching children with a mother-tongue other than Swedish (in this case, Finnish) in a way that would provide them the same educational and…

This book is intended for teachers who are familiar with the basic techniques of teaching a foreign language and who would profit by suggestions on helping learners acquire a general communicative ability, which would enable them to cope with everyday situations. The starting point is a discussion of a communicative view of language and language…

This bulletin is produced annually in the interest of children with specific language disability, learning disabilities, or dyslexia. The 16 articles in this issue deal with the following topics: specific learning disabilities; lateralized tachistoscopic recognition, cerebral dominance, and dyslexia; language proficiency and lateral position in…

This book is designed to assist those who work with non-English dominant students by providing resource information relevant to second language teaching and learning. The articles in the series encompass both theory and practical learning techniques in six general topics. The third text of the series includes five articles on reading and writing.…

This book is designed to assist those who work with non-English dominant students by providing resource information relevant to second language teaching and learning. The articles in the series encompass both theory and practical learning techniques in six general topics. The articles in the second text of the series, concerning speaking and…