In this article we examine how instructors make decisions about task design in telecollaboration and the factors that influence these decisions during the actual implementation of the tasks. We begin with a review of the recent literature of online intercultural exchanges to identify and describe a typology of 12 different types of tasks and task…

The following legal issues were chosen to illustrate the issues presently before the courts: those surrounding White flight and the proper extent of remedial desegregation, the neighborhood school, new definitions of equal educational opportunity, and the treatment of Hispanics. (Author/IRT)

Describes the unique situation of an Anglo Spanish-speaking teacher who is assigned to teach Spanish to a group of non-Spanish-speaking youngsters of Puerto Rican descent. Successful strategies for overcoming the socio- and psycholinguistic barriers of working in this situation are listed as the teacher describes how she created a non-threatening…

Presents a conflation of and a comparison between the 1,646 verbs the Royal Academy's "Diccionario de la lengua espanola" (Dictionary of the Spanish Language) classifies as solely or partly intransitive and the 1,382 verbs that are so classified by the "Pequeno Larousse ilustrado" (Illustrated Larousse Small Dictionary).…

Provides a list of recently published children's books in Spanish for Spanish-speaking children or students learning Spanish as a second or foreign language. The list is divided into one section for very young children and another for middle grade students. Information is also given about a Web site where users can access a searchable database of…

Michael Woolf's article, "Come and See the Poor People: The Pursuit of Exotica," is a provocative critique of what he calls the "new orthodoxy" of promoting study abroad in non-traditional destinations. Woolf's underlying point is that the current emphasis on promoting student mobility to non-traditional, i.e. non-European, destinations "is…

This paper examines ways that Hispanic culture can be dealt with in Spanish as a foreign language for business. First, rationales for teaching culture are offered, ranging from the abstract observation that knowledge of culture is a required part of a humanistic education, to the more pragmatic need of businesses for representatives who are fluent…

Concludes that the Spanish Oral Reading Test can be a useful tool for teachers who need to estimate the reading levels of immigrant children. (FL)

A discussion of issues concerning the feasibility of conducting a Spanish version of the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) is presented. The discussion is based on a 1992 seminar to address linguistic, political, and logistic concerns in such an undertaking. While the experience with the NALS guided discussion, the primary focus was on special…

Because of the pressures of modernization and other cultural factors, freshmen students at the University of the Sacred Heart in Puerto Rico lack basic communication skills in both Spanish and English. At present, there is no composition course in Spanish at the college, and the basic Spanish textbook currently in use reflects attitudes on…

Two studies on the phonology of Spanish spoken by Cubans in the United States are critically analyzed. The studies are: "Markedness and a Cuban Dialect of Spanish," by Jorge M. Guitart, and "Some Theoretical Implications from Rapid Speech Phenomena in Miami-Cuban Spanish," by Robert M. Hammond. The methodologies of Hammond and Guitart are…

Discusses the problem of recruitment of Spanish-speaking Americans to the library profession from an historical perspective; offers reasons for recruiting failures; and notes the roles of the individual librarian, the library school, federal government, and library associations in solving problems. Twenty-one references are cited. (EJS)

Discusses national linguistic tensions related to the increasing number of Spanish speakers in the United States. Focuses on a group of language scholars who are engaging in efforts to change or suppress the use of U.S. Spanish, particularly in the domain of Spanish. Asserts that the arguments put forth by this group are based on attitudes of the…

Argues in favor of a syntactic analysis of secondary predication and against the semantic approach to predication. Most of the evidence to be adduced comes from Spanish. It is posited that secondary predicates are base-generated inside VP in Spanish, confirming Culicover and Wilken's (1984) and Robert's (1988) analysis for English. (40 references)…

Bilingual business education is increasing in importance in response to the growing Spanish speaking population, bilingual student population, and need for bilingual employees. The continued immigration from Mexico and growth in the number of unskilled Spanish speaking workers will lead to an increased need for bilingual supervisors and managers.…