The current study contributes to the argument regarding whether L2 learners up to advanced levels make agreement errors on grammatical gender. It reports gender agreement accuracy on a written Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) and an Elicited Oral Production Task (PDT) on known nouns assigned the correct gender by participants on a vocabulary…

Research on the language-literature divide in undergraduate second language programs documents the challenge of engaging literature learners in classroom discourse which is conducive to their developing interpersonal speaking skills as measured on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Scale. In this study, Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) were…

Educational institutions with world language requirements face increasing student demand to offer Spanish Language for Specific Purposes (SPSP) courses at lower proficiency levels to fulfill language requirements. Language for specific purposes courses are designed to fulfill the communicative needs of students within a specific professional…

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) model posits that reading is the product of word decoding and language comprehension and that oral language (listening) comprehension is the best predictor of reading comprehension once word-decoding skill has been established. The SVR model also proposes that there are good readers and three types of poor…

During the last decade, researchers of foreign language pedagogy have become increasingly interested in the "language-literature divide" (Donato and Brooks 2004). The purpose of the current study is to contribute to this growing body of research by investigating the extent to which whole class discussions in three third-year…

Demand for medical Spanish courses has grown with the rising needs of Spanish-speaking patients in the United States, but while there is no shortage of beginning medical Spanish textbooks, very few target the intermediate level. This article examines eighteen medical Spanish texts published in the last twenty years with respect to seven factors:…

Examines how Spanish is taught to Hispanic bilinguals. Discussion focuses on how the oral proficiency movement directly affects the teaching of native Spanish speakers. Key issues and problems stemming from the language teaching profession's attempts to apply the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service…

A pilot study used the Spanish Oral Proficiency Test (SOPT)--a taped oral test--to evaluate the oral proficiency level of students of intermediate Spanish. Also examined what variables might affect the development of students' oral skills. (Author/VWL)

Suggests some considerations crucial to maintaining and improving the current acceptance and promotion of foreign language instruction, focusing particularly on notions involving functional language learning and oral language skills. (CB)

Multiple regression analysis of data regarding college students' oral proficiency in using the present subjunctive after residence in a Spanish-speaking country found a significant positive relationship between length of residence and subjunctive proficiency, and a nonstatistically significant positive relationship between formal study and…

Examines how six major areas of foreign language education in Florida have been significantly affected by the proficiency movement. These areas include oral testing, curricular goals, instructional materials, teaching methods, state and county initiatives, and standards of achievement for teachers and students. (11 references) (GLR)

Describes the development and validation of the Portuguese Speaking Test, a simulated oral proficiency interview that uses a semidirect approach to examine proficiency in personal conversation, direction-giving, description, narration, topical discourse, and real-life situations. (CB)

Describes the University of Texas at El Paso's use of a Spanish placement system that seeks to appropriately place both native and non-native speakers of Spanish in the correct track and level of Spanish courses. (CB)

Analyzed some factors affecting acquisition of subjunctive by upper level students of Spanish. Variables included were 1) length of foreign residence; 2) total amount of formal study; and 3) pretest and posttest scores. A week-long lesson on the uses of subjunctive intervened between the tests. Tests are appended. (LMO)

Presents an approach for developing oral proficiency in the advanced conversation course that proposes, as an organizing principle, the use of Swales's concept of genre as a class of communicative events that share a communicative purpose. It is concluded that focus on genre can improve proficiency performance and articulation. (eight references)…