This paper discusses criteria for evaluating foreign language textbooks. First, common textbook dislikes, concerning both content and format, are outlined. Then three desirable characteristics--authenticity, communication, and integration--are discussed at length, divided into subcriteria, and arranged as a rating scale for textbook evaluation.…

Intended for teachers and administrators who wish to assess student oral communication needs before designing an appropriate program, this guide provides a review of tests for measuring acts of speaking and listening. The guide surveys and discusses procedures for assessing speaking and listening skills among school children and focuses on…

This handbook describes Los Angeles Pierce College's (LAPC's) English Skills Tutorial Package, which seeks to identify specific areas of strength and weakness in students' language proficiency and to strengthen those specific areas through discrete and holistic approaches and, sometimes, conscious coaching. Following introductory comments about…

A variety of classroom activities and techniques are available to motivate students, engage them, and give immediate positive feedback on oral communication, including: having students give each other elementary arithmetical exercises; circulation of vocabulary cards for immediate use on conversation, with later review; having a system of rewards…

Developed by teachers to provide a district-wide description of English course content, this curriculum guide is intended for use as a basis for planning instructional activities in a number of areas. The guide consists of four main sections: (1) an introduction, which provides a statement of philosophy, a scope and sequence of skills within…

A high school teacher tells how student talk became an integral part of her teaching program. She devised oral language activities, including reading aloud, debate, and small group discussions. She also rearranged the classroom to encourage discussion. Encouraging classroom talk led to improved writing skills. (SKC)

Designed for teachers, parents, and teacher educators who are looking for an accessible text on the topic of learning to read, this book's comprehensive scope encompasses standards for early literacy instruction, instructional strategies, alternative assessment procedures, strategies for making connections, and ways to integrate children's home…

This book provides functional, pragmatic activities for educators, future teachers, and parents to promote the gift of literacy to others. The book offers 101 detailed lesson plans for the four literacy domains of oral and written language, word recognition, comprehension and strategic reading for narrative text, and study skills and strategic…

This paper examines disagreement over how second language learning tasks create conditions needed for language acquisition by exploring and comparing three second language acquisition theories: input-based; output-based; and interactionist. Each theory is described, and some new conclusions are drawn. It is argued that a task should: be…

Aligned with its 1998 standards for first and second language learning, Alberta Learning has published lesson plans that aim for a closer relationship between learning and evaluation. Each volume in this series presents a specific task for students that involves planning, carrying out and evaluating their work. The task for ninth grade students…

Discusses the evolution and content of CANCODE, an English-language corpus under development at the University of Nottingham (England) designed to reflect current language use, and several related issues: whether the grammar currently taught should be changed to more closely correspond to common usage; whether the native speaker should be the…

A teacher workshop held in Italy brought together storytellers, teachers at all educational levels, and teaching specialists to explore the pedagogical possibilities of storytelling as a method of teaching French as a foreign language. Teachers learned techniques for helping their students create and tell stories. (MSE)

Ways in which the French teacher can use print media for language skill development are offered. Classroom techniques for exploiting these texts for instruction in grammar, reading comprehension, writing, and oral expression are presented, including ideas for selecting a variety of authentic materials. (MSE)

The situation at Haifa University, which has received approximately 250 new Russian immigrants each semester for the past 2 years, is discussed in terms of testing and evaluation, student performance, and implications for learning and teaching. Differences between multilingual and monolingual language learning are described. (six references) (LB)

A discussion of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction begins with a review of the English language teaching situation in Singapore today and goes on to examine issues in the production of ESL instructional materials. The focus is on oral language instruction. The first section, concerning Singapore, outlines the structure of syllabuses…