This research investigated the possibility that there exists in Russian, as in other languages, a certain order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes that is relatively stable across individuals and which is immune to methods of instruction, textbooks, teachers, and other circumstances surrounding the learning of Russian. (Author)

This paper discusses findings from an ongoing 3-year study of the impact of strategy training on Russian listening comprehension. In particular, the study focused on the techniques that encourage increased student control of their application of learner strategies. The research presented adds to prior research on listening training in second…

The proficiency movement in second language teaching has had a wide impact because it represents not only an attempt to introduce a national metric but also an attempt to modify the nature of the second language curriculum. The curriculum has been pointed in the direction of instruction in the functional use of language. The list of languages…

The roles of aptitude, attitude and motivation in language learning are discussed. A questionnaire distributed to college Russian students investigated attitudes toward Russian and reasons for studying the language. Both integrative-intrinsic and instrumental-utilitarian orientations toward Russian correlated positively with success in studying…

This report addresses the reliability of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), not as a measure of speaking ability, but rather as practiced by testers trained by the ACTFL, such as by the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), in English as a Second Language (ESL), French, German,…

This study investigated factors associated with the acquisition of second-language pronunciation and methodological problems associated with the study of foreign accents. Thirty-six native speakers of Russian fluent in English read specifically constructed English sentences and a prose passage, and talked spontaneously about their daily routine.…

Russian word order is varied to suit the communicative requirements of the speaker. The present study tests the hypothesis that American students of Russian use word order differently from native speakers, using the same order for different communicative tasks. Study results support the hypothesis. (CHK)

Reports on a classroom-based, longitudinal study of the effect of learner strategy instruction on listening comprehension. The hypothesis that systematic instruction in the use of strategies will result in the improvement of listening comprehension was confirmed. (Author/JL)

Considers the interrater reliability of certified testers in five European languages, the relationship between interviewer-assigned ratings and second ratings based on audio replay, interrater reliability as a function of proficiency level, effect of different languages on interrater agreement, and interrater disagreements with regard to…

Assesses the speaking, reading, listening, and writing proficiency of students of Russian after one, two, three, four, and five years of study using tests based on the proficiency scale of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Results indicate that the correlations among the four skills were not strong, suggesting that they…