Discusses the design of a course in Mandarin Chinese developed by the US government's Interagency Language Roundtable after President Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China and its implications for vocabulary choice, the teaching of grammar, the use of dialogues, achievement tests, listening comprehension, and classroom activities.…

Reviews criteria for success of both teacher education programs and language teachers across educational levels, examining what has already been achieved in preparing teachers. Offers a set of proposals to engage teacher education specialists in second languages in dialog about the future of teacher development. (EKN)

Applies findings from 1978 Children's English and Services Study to the 1980 census. Estimates a minimum of 3,400,000 childen are limited in English language skills needed to succeed in schools designed for English-speaking majority children. Emphasizes necessity to understand differences in estimates to appreciate extent of need for special…

Written for the general classroom teacher whose class includes English language learners (ELLs), as well as for ELL teachers working in general classrooms, this book portrays ELL students in grades 3-6 who learn essential reading and writing skills and are full members of the classroom community. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the…

Immigrants compose an increasingly large share of the U.S. labor force and growing share of low-wage workers. Immigrants' hourly wages are lower on average than those for natives. Immigrant workers are much more likely than native workers to drop out of high school. Three-fourths of all U.S. workers with less than a ninth grade education are…

This paper describes two groups of students learning French online, one earning college credit through California's Coastline Community College and one studying for self-enrichment with the Annenberg/CPB Project and the University of Maryland University College. Students receive and are encouraged to explore weekly/semi-weekly current Web sites.…

This collection of papers is divided into four sections. Section 1, "Historical Linguistics," includes "The Grammaticalization of Non-Dative Reflexes of Latin ill- in Spanish" (Jose R. Carrasquel) and "'Esto es Ligero de Fazer': Object to Subject Raising in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish" (Mark Davies). Section 2, "Language Acquisition and…

This study examined teacher and peer assessment of English language oral presentation skills in Japanese classrooms. Twelve graduate university students' oral class presentations were assessed by a teacher and four peers. After presentations were rated, teachers calculated the evaluations, and classmates shared their opinions on the top three…

This paper describes the development of the Benesse Proficiency Test of English Communication, which was created for the Benesse Corporation of Japan. The Benesse test was developed in response to Japan's movement toward more communicative English language teaching and testing. It was intended to test language used in authentic communication. The…

This document was written to support the work of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs. The message provided is straightforward: we can meet the challenge of supporting first and second language development in preschool children. This paper is organized around four questions: (1) Can we facilitate children's acquisition of English…

A group of seven Japanese-language Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) testers licensed by the American Council on the Teaching of foreign Languages (ACTFL) conducted research related to ACTFL-OPI criteria. They first examined 24 audiotaped interview tests to see what kind of consistency there would be when individual testers applied general criteria…

A study used error analysis to examine and compare the English language proficiency and language learning patterns of two native Japanese speakers, aged 15 and 17. Data were elicited verbally from the subjects, with more elicited from the older, and analyzed for error patterns. Results indicate striking similarities in error patterns; however, a…

This study investigated language transfer, particularly in the realm of pragmatics, in a native Korean-speaking student of advanced Japanese. A series of tasks including a verbal report were used to elicit Japanese production and comprehension data. Results indicate that the learner drew heavily on his native language in completing the tasks, but…

This paper examines the latest results of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), a multifaceted investigation of the educational performance, and social, cultural, and psychological adaptation of children of immigrants. Since late 1991, the study has followed the progress of a sizable sample of teenage youths representing 77…

This report provides annual information for the 1998-99 school year on grade-level retention in the Texas public school system, based on the Public Education Information Management System. Data on retention are provided by grade, ethnicity, gender, participation in special education, degree of English proficiency, and socioeconomic status. In…