Humor is an excellent teaching tool because, in addition to preventing classroom boredom and monotony, it introduces lateral aspects of language such as irony, sarcasm, mockery, elision, ellipsis, and euphemism. Humor in language can be approached interactively or structurally through a variety of activities. It can be used to expand vocabulary,…

The following articles on second language teaching techniques, English as a second language, and cross cultural communication are included: (1) "'Honne' and 'Tatemae': Tools for Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language," by Gregory J. Thompson; (2) "Using Video-Taped Movies with Advanced ESOL Students," by…

The manual designed as a guide for trainers in a seminar for teachers concerning some of the central issues in contemporary foreign language teaching and learning presents notes on each of the five seminar sessions, including overall goals and goals for the prescribed session activity, time and procedural notes, and reading lists. (MSE)

The final report of a study on the impact of English language training on adult Southeast Asian refugees in the United States summarizes the findings of the study's three phases, which include (1) a mail survey of local, regional, and state program administrators; (2) 22 program site visits and four community surveys; and (3) a six-month…

This paper describes an inquiry which answers two questions regarding the installation of a new instructional program: (1) What are the patterns of implementation displayed when a new program is installed across the country? Implementation in this context is described in terms of the selection and placement of learners, pacing of instruction and…

This document describes a procedure designed to enhance the effectiveness of teaching in intermediate and advanced English as a second language (ESL) classes. The procedure consists of letting students express themselves in writing in their native language (whether French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, or Italian) and having the same students the…

The linguistic theory of contrastive analysis, which provides pragmatic insights into the teaching of foreign languages, can be equally successful when applied to the teaching of one dialect of a language to speakers of its other dialects. This paper briefly illustrates how a theoretically constructed hierarchy of difficulty, originally designed…

This paper describes the English-Italian bilingual education program of the Tangipahoa Parish School System in Tangipahoa, Louisiana. The program reaches approximately seven hundred students from kindergarten through third grade, and the main objectives of the program are (1) refining the native language for children of non-English speaking…

This publication is one of a series designed to inform and assist those responsible for foreign language instruction, including teachers, administrators, supervisors, and those engaged in teacher education. The complete series serves as a curriculum guide. The format of the series is such that it can be revised so as to keep materials current.…

The Aural Grammar Test was designed to assess aural grammatical competence for language presented in a formal situation. The subjects used in this initial development of the test were 147 Toronto high school students learning French as a second language. The test is described and the results are interpreted in terms of both the explicit and…

This guide for the foreign language methods course is organized in the form of answers to seven questions that the methods teacher might ask about available resources. The first part is an annotated list of texts covering theory, techniques, testing, linguistics and individualized instruction. The second section considers the role of the basic…

This collection of readings on the topic of teaching English as a second language (ESL) has a twofold purpose: to enlarge the ESL teacher's awareness of the field and to assist in the professional growth of the new teacher or teacher-trainee. Each of the book's nine sections deal with one area of ESL instruction. Section 1, "Trends and Practices,"…

This booklet consists of five articles. The first, "Bilingual Education: Reading through Two Languages," by Arturo Luis Gutierrez, stresses the importance of teaching Spanish-speaking children to read first in their native tongue. The second article, "Teaching All Children to Read," by Donald E. Critchlow, discusses methodology and the problems…

The foreign language teaching situation in community colleges is discussed. Foreign language teaching in community colleges tends to be demanding due to the limited curriculum of such institutions, limited enrollment in foreign language courses, and the heterogeneity of the student population in terms of career goals, educational preparation, and…

The research reported in this paper is concerned with three questions. Are the processes of language development complete by the time children begin school? What is the order of the emergence of control of grammatical rules? And is that order similar for first and second language learners? The data used in the analysis come from a project centered…