This book provides a range of practical ideas for teachers of English as a first or second language for working with newspapers in the classroom. It seeks not only to provide teachers with resources and techniques for using newspapers, but also to give students practice in the skills needed to enable them to read English-language newspapers for…

This paper discusses the use of the re-broadcast of French television news (Le Journal de 20 Heures) as a tool to develop aural proficiency in college students enrolled in a business French course in the United States. Before viewing each 1- to 2-minute news segment, students complete vocabulary exercises and read a relevant newspaper article.…

A project developed at Indiana University of Pennsylvania was designed to meet the needs of secondary school teachers of French and Spanish in two areas: proficiency maintenance and improvement, and proficiency testing. The program consisted of four phases, two during the funding period and two follow-up. The first, proficiency-building, involved…

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Scholars Program is an honors curriculum for outstanding students. Based on the rationale that overseas language study in an appropriate cultural setting can be an exciting and efficient way to acquire cultural understanding and language proficiency in general, and oral fluency in particular, the new…

Holistic scoring is widely used to assess writing proficiency in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) composition. Written recall protocols have recently been used to investigate the relationship between how much holistic scorers comprehend of a given text and how high they rate the quality of that text. This study investigated whether readers…

A study of the relationship between language learners' attitudes and their development of language proficiency was based on a survey of 50 Yugoslavian university students of English as a Second Language (ESL). The subjects were taking English to fulfill a second language requirement. They were first administered two written attitudinal surveys in…

The instrument for Colorado's Foreign Language Proficiency Sample Project and directions for its administration are provided in this document. The project is a voluntary, teacher-designed and -administered effort to standardize high school student language proficiency assessment techniques. The materials are used in teacher workshops. The…

This study proposed that captioned television, as a multi-sensory, largely entertaining medium might be an important source of comprehensive input for bilingual students in learning language and literacy. To explore this issue, the study investigated the following questions: (1) can bilingual students acquire vocabulary incidentally through…

This study claimed that the ability of bilingual children to solve metalinguistic problems depends upon the demands of a given problem for analysis of knowledge or control of processing. It examined two hypotheses concerning bilingualism and metalinguistic problem-solving: (1) that bilingual children would be more advanced than monolingual…

The content of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act is described, its current interpretations are examined, and the implications for developing a responsible language and citizenship curriculum to conform to the legislation are discussed. Specific attention is focused on the law's requirement that illegal aliens applying for amnesty and…

A study estimated the size of the population of adults and out-of-school youth with limited English proficiency (LEP) who need vocational education and related employment services and projected the size of this population from the time of the study to the year 2000. Research procedures included a literature review, an analysis of 1980 U.S. census…

This paper, a discussion of the use of written tests to assess second language proficiency and achievement, considers what constitutes a valid writing test task and addresses three questions: (1) To what extent is performance influenced by prior knowledge about the topic? (2) Does it make a difference how the writing task is specified on the test…

This report describes the results of adult education students and upper secondary school students on two recently introduced standardized English tests in Sweden. Comparisons of the results are made between these two categories of students because they are entitled to compete, on an equal basis, for admission into restricted intake programs of…

Properties of maintenance and loss of Spanish/English bilingualism were investigated in 308 high school students of Mexican background. Key variables investigated included: (1) actual and self-reported proficiencies in Spanish and English; (2) self-reported language choice behavior in various settings; and (3) language attitude. The biggest…

As part of an examination required by the Alberta (Canada) Department of Education in order for 12th grade students to receive a diploma in French, this booklet contains the composition component of the January 1987 tests. Divided into three essay questions for a total writing time of two and one-half hours duration, parts one and two of the test…