This report includes a Maryland statewide analysis, by competency, of student learning outcomes, assessment activities at community colleges, as well as public four-year colleges and universities. The workgroup decide that these reports would focus on each of the five competencies related to general education and essential skills that are…

Analyzed the spoken and written language of Caribbean college students who consider themselves to be native speakers of English. Discusses the students' linguistic self-perception as well as the morphosyntactic and discourse features that emerge when they write in standard English. The study suggests that anglophone Caribbean students should be…

Students in advanced business Spanish courses gave oral presentations on geo-political and economic conditions in chosen Hispanic countries. The goals of these reports were to increase awareness of the unique identities of these countries, to introduce research tools for use in business research, and to inculcate linguistic and humanistic…

Studied differences in language gain in French among two groups of students, those who studied abroad and those who remained at home to study in the college classroom. Six nonteacher native speakers compared the oral and written fluency of both groups of students. Results show the context of language learning is a factor in what oral and written…

Describes the development of an online course that aims to help tertiary students improve their English oral presentation skills. The course aims to allow learners to prepare their presentations out of class and then practice these skills in class with peer and teacher feedback. (Author/VWL)

Assesses the changes in the use of language learning strategies by 18 Irish students of German over the course of their 4-year undergraduate degree. The Strategy Inventory for Language Leaning was used to assess the use of language learning strategies by these students in year 2 and again in year 4. (VWL)

Examines peer collaboration in a group of Japanese undergraduate students who were engaged in an academic presentation task during their yearlong studies in a content-based English-as-a-Second-Language program in a Canadian university. Students' preparatory activities outside of the classroom included negotiating task definition and teacher…

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)

Discusses complexities inherent in correcting second language students' spoken and written errors. Alternatives to current error correction methods (1) focus on the use of error correction to improve students' language form, (2) involve the real communicative consequences of inaccuracy, (3) suggest strategies for attending to form when listening…

Describes the development of an interactive videodisc package designed to give Japanese-speaking business students extensive exposure to, and practice with, spoken English in realistic situations. Package activities stress a non-coercive, user-centered, low anxiety approach that encourages language learning through exploration and experience…

A validation study of the "semi-direct" Chinese Speaking Test (CST) directly compared college students' performance on the test with their performance on the "live" language proficiency interview. CST provided scoring results largely equivalent to those of the live interview, although examinees perceived CST to be more…

A college faculty member points out that allowing students to write and perform their own foreign language plays improves listening, speaking, and writing skills and exposes the students to new idiomatic expressions and conversational patterns used in contextually relevant and culturally specific situations. (Author/CB)

Listening is an important part of presenting. An optimum learning environment is one in which individuals participate fully without pretense in the presentation experience. The article explores why listening is so important, offers tips for the best ways to listen to audience members, and examines how not to listen. (SM)

Reviews the resurgence in the use of literature in the English-as-a-Second-Language classroom and reports on a writing class at a technical university in Singapore. The course included both reading and oral report components. Only general guidelines were given on principles of organization and presentation. Results indicate improvement in student…

Reports on a study investigating whether a field-specific oral proficiency test would be a better predictor of field-specific performance than a general purpose oral proficiency test. A theoretical discussion is presented on field-specific language testing and guidelines for the construction of oral proficiency tests in specific purpose contexts.…