Latinos represent the fastest growing population in U.S. schools, and teachers face an increasingly demanding educational context in which to teach. The goal of this article is to present vignettes drawn from classroom observations conducted by preservice teachers in urban areas. Preservice teachers capture the dilemma faced by many teachers who…

In all educational contexts, technological developments and changes in pedagogical theory mean that any picture of current practice and attitudes must be dynamic. In many countries, the learning outcomes of foreign language courses now include intercultural communicative competence (ICC), although the precise model for teaching ICC varies even…

This study investigated the relationship of first language (L1) skills in elementary school and second language (L2) learning in high school. Students classified as high-, average-, and low-proficiency L2 learners were compared on L1 achievement measures of reading, spelling, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and listening comprehension…

Taking advantage of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory, which suggests that adoption of a specific innovation is critically influenced by the way the adopters receive it, this article aims at presenting the implementation process of such an innovation in the form of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in an English as a Foreign…

This study investigates how comments that Mexican nationals made about U.S. schools influenced Mexican immigrant adolescents' perceptions of and experiences in U.S. schools. I investigated the diffusion of this information at three specific points in time--prior to immigration, upon entry to the U.S., and after a few years of living in the U.S.…

This annotated bibliography lists research published between 1960 and 1980 in the field of vocabulary acquisition and word handling in a second language. The bibliography is divided into two sections. The first contains 280 entries listed alphabetically. A short abstract is provided for each entry. The second section is a supplementary…

This bibliography is a follow-up to the "Specialised Bibliography 3," published by the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, in 1983. This volume covers work in the field of second language vocabulary acquisition that has appeared between 1980 and 1985. There are approximately 300 entries in this bibliography, and for each…

The process of interference in second language learning is examined. A case study involving the acquisition of English in a natural environment by a 33-year-old French speaker is presented. Spontaneous speech was recorded in 30-minute sessions at 1- to 2-week intervals over a period of 4 months. Analysis indicates that the process of lexical…

Problems encountered by Russian language students caused by noncorrespondence of meaning are described. It is argued that many of the difficulties which students encounter in learning vocabulary result from semantic shifts within Russian. (RM)

Discusses differences between text and dialog. Characteristics of dialog--ellipsis, use of function-words, valence-reductions, specific sentence models, placement of sentence elements, sentence depth, internal sentence structure--set limits to the teachability of dialog. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A teaching method should embrace the total process of utilizing language material down to the application of the newly acquired knowledge in speech. FL learning should be situationally based and divided into speech activity units, to each of which the corresponding teaching method should be applied. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

In 1973 a commission of the FMF (Modern Foreign Language League, Federal Republic of Germany) published a proposal for a taxonomy of activity characteristics of the FL teacher. Kurt Otten criticized this proposal in the weekly "Die Zeit" (19 April 1974). Here, members of the FMF commission reject four of Otten's assertions. (Text is in…

This article questioned the linguistic assumptions that underlie most language teaching and suggested that a clearer recognition of the communicative function of language might result in a more realistic and effective learning experience. (Author/RK)

Special classes to facilitate the educational integration of the migrant workers' children teach the language of the host country and instruct in the students' languages some of the subjects that they will carry when placed in routine classes. (JH)