Reports on a study designed to investigate the results of intensive sentence-combining practice on the written and oral syntactic fluency of college students of French. (AM)

A successful advanced college-level French conversation course using French theater as a basis for students to learn oral skills has six phases: an overview of the history of French theater, reading, adaptation of the text, rehearsal-readings, final rehearsals, and performance. (MSE)

Describes organization of a one-semester oral/aural skills course which was oriented around the commercially available tape of 25-episode serialized suspense story. The appendix lists examples of support materials that were coordinated with the stories episodes to provide aural, oral, visual, and written reinforcement. (EJS)

Discussion of college curricula in commercial French looks at its special requirements, available textbooks, and important features of video instructional materials. The curriculum of DePaul University (Illinois) is described, focusing on the emphasis placed on speech and listening skills within a curriculum integrating all language skills and…

Describes a one-semester conversational course taught at Harvard University designed to teach basic oral communication skills in French with the main emphasis on teaching students to pause while speaking. (AM)

A study compared the effectiveness of two methods of second language instruction, video-based and text-based, during one academic year of college-level French instruction. Experimental and control groups each had 14 subjects. Results showed some difference in achievement in listening, and little in reading, speaking, writing, or grammar. (MSE)