Traditional problems in language instruction include competing methodological approaches, excessive cognitive content, and ineffectual teacher and student roles. A new combination of cognitive, direct, and confluent methodological approaches uses classroom time for acquisition activities, reduces grammar learning requirements, and gives students…

Describes the Strategic Interaction Approach, which is built around the use of scenarios, rather than a grammar syllabus, and requires students to work through communication problems. Discusses its usefulness for short term courses aimed toward training professionals to gain working knowledge in specific fields. (EKN)

Describes French language classes for Hispanophones at the University of Texas at El Paso begun in order to meet needs of large Spanish-speaking contingent of its student body. Claims system has psychological and linguistic advantages and believes method could be used in any institution having Spanish-speaking students. (Author/BK)

This article reports on the process of developing a proficiency-oriented writing contest, as well as a system of assessment of that writing based on a set of rubrics for each level of writing. (Contains six references.) (VWL)

This article focuses on a qualitative teacher research project with a fourth-semester university Spanish class that emphasized inquiry-based learning. One of the primary objectives of the class was to increase learner autonomy through self-selected inquiries, self-directed learning activities, and curricular negotiation. Multiple data sources were…

Explains a classroom presentation of verb forms and tense functions based on the communicative needs of the students rather than on the full paradigm of each verb tense. Arguments for the use of this natural approach and an association model to facilitate vocabulary acquisition are presented. (PMJ)

Explored how beginning learners of Spanish develop the ability to use preterit and imperfect past tense forms by analyzing the self-correction behavior they exhibited in their oral production. Each of 15 participants produced five narratives during their second semester of instruction, which were analyzed for the features learners focused their…

Discusses how several forms of authentic materials can be used in the foreign language classroom. Materials are included from videotape, audiotape, and print. Sample activities use each medium for Spanish and French classes of various levels. Sources for authentic materials are listed in Appendices. (LMO)

A classroom experiment involving 79 first-semester Spanish students measured the relationship between foreign language vocabulary visual aids, vocabulary achievement scores, and student modality strengths. Results suggest a need for further research for devising the best combination of visual aids, particularly for predominantly visual or auditory…

Demonstrates how text editing programs can become the platform for a higher volume of student foreign language production, provide a greater variety of writing assignments in the second language, and make grading and writing management easier for language teachers. (21 references) (Author/CB)

This study is an examination of the use of captioned video with beginning students of Spanish. Two groups of students watched a Spanish-language video with or without Spanish captioning and the groups' comprehension scores were compared. Students in the captioning group described how they used the pictures, sound, and captioning to understand the…

This pilot project was designed to provide professional development to teaching assistants (TAs) and improve undergraduate instruction in an intensive Spanish course through the use of collaboration and experiential instruction. TAs improved their teaching strategies, learned techniques to solve classroom problems, and reported satisfaction from…

This study sought to extend previous research on ethnographic interviews as a method of culture learning in foreign language classes by employing a qualitative case study methodology. Fifty-four university students in a first-year Spanish course worked in pairs to conduct a series of three ethnographic interviews with a native speaker of Spanish.…