Successful listening is a critical element of learning and performing in a new language. Second language teachers should include more listening activities in their class routines, and should consider a greater variety of formats and class organizational styles for those activities. The small-group format, not often used for listening activities,…

The growing problem of English mother tongue competence is slowly being recognized by teachers in several disciplines, especially by teachers of translation. In a language degree course such as that at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland), which specializes in teaching translating and interpreting, a high standard of mother tongue…

Formal and functional similarities in a learner's first and second languages (L1 and L2) facilitate the perception of cross-linguistic equivalence between individual items (phonemes, morphemes, words, and phrases). The beginning foreign language learner makes frequent use of these perceived equivalences when he learns to understand L2 items. This…

In language learning, one important prerequisite for successful imitation of the native speaker is full awareness of his linguistic behavior and, if possible, its analysis. Brief language immersion and brief periods of conversation in the target language do not provide enough opportunity to observe the native speakers' linguistic peculiarities and…

Four evaluation studies were conducted of French as a second language program in grades 4, 5, and 6 in a large urban school district in western Canada. As a result of the 1972 study, which revealed major discrepancies between intended and observed outcomes, especially in oral skills, a major objectives-based curriculum was initiated. As part of…

This paper describes the individualized program in second-year French at the University of Montana. Learning packets were designed for the course, and each contained the following: (1) a list of learning objectives, (2) an activities map, (3) self-tests, (4) a preparation test, (5) the final test, (6) a conversation-pronunciation test, and (7) a…

The oral proficiency interview should be administered infrequently, but there are other measures than can be used between interviews to maintain oral proficiency and achievement as the organizing principles of instruction while placing fewer demands on the teacher/tester. One such measure is a semi-direct procedure that has two steps. First,…

A study examined the effects of visual-verbal redundancy and recaps on learning from television news. Two factors were used: redundancy between the visual and audio channels, and the presence or absence of a recap. Manipulation of these factors created four conditions: (1) redundant pictures and words plus recap, (2) redundant pictures and words…

Problems encountered by one small liberal arts college foreign language department in gaining and maintaining academic acceptance and support for business/foreign language courses are discussed. The initial challenge was to persuade the administration of the suitability of specialized business courses in a subject field (languages) viewed largely…

As individual states and communities work out curriculum and instructional expectations, high quality assessments of communication skills will continue to evolve. An active cycle of setting goals, developing instruction, teaching, testing, and assessing student and system success is the key to the process of renewal and improvement. All types of…

Comparing the effects of interactive audio in computer-based instruction (CBI) versus noninteractive audio in CBI on the skills and attitudes of music students in identifying harmonic voicing was divided into two subproblems for this study. The first was to compare students' skill in identifying harmonic voicing using interactive versus…

A sample of 1,500 students in grades K-3 were selected from 80 Jordanian schools in a study of aural vocabulary scores. This study followed a pilot study in 1980 of an Arabic translation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test with Arabic-speaking children with limited English proficiency in the Dearborn, Michigan, public schools. The 1982…

This paper constitutes an analysis of the audiolingual concept in terms of what it was originally intended to mean and what it has come to mean in second language teaching. Basic to the concept is the notion that language was originally a matter of oral communication, and that although writing and writing systems are central, they have secondary…

An instructional program that teaches decoding skills to learning disabled children was developed to serve as a supplement to whatever reading program is used in the classroom. As a result of task analysis, the program's instructional sequence begins with auditory tasks analyzing syllables and short words into phonemes, then blending these…

Questions are addressed pertaining to the Language Assessment Battery (LAB), currently the only single battery that meets all of the state of Connecticut criteria for an instrument to determine which pupils must be offered bilingual education. Normed on an English dominant population, the primary purpose was to obtain its psychometric…