This qualitative study examines perceptions and use of assignment feedback among adult beginner modern foreign language learners on higher education distance learning courses. A survey of responses to feedback on assignments by 43 Open University students on beginner language courses in Spanish, French, and German indicated that respondents can be…

Discusses the findings of a questionnaire sent to 20 representative universities in the South Atlantic Modern Language Association to determine the content and utilization of reading lists for graduate students of Spanish. Discusses considerations to be made in preparing or revising the reading lists. (SED)

Some concepts to help teachers adhere to classroom instruction in the target language are presented and discussed. These include ideas related to the teacher's speech (visual cues, speed, and repetition and rephrasing), student speech (teacher-assisted and student-dominated communication), out-of-class assignments, and teacher assessment of…

One of the major concerns of the foreign language profession today is to find a way to promote better cross-cultural understanding while continuing to develop linguistic skills. This discussion focuses on a series of oral and written tasks based on authentic written texts. (11 references) (VWL)

What syntactic patterns emerge in students' use of articles and modals? What are the reasons for these patterns? What implications do the findings of the study have for English language instruction in Botswana? Exactly 1556 essays comprising class assignments, written seminar presentations, test papers and examination scripts from 514 randomly…

A credit-rated tandem course unit has been running at the University of Manchester for the past six years and an element of peer assessment has always been present in the assessment procedure. Unfortunately, the course leaders found that this element was not entirely satisfactory. Although there were clear criteria in the course documentation for…

This teaching guide is the result of 3 years of thinking, trying, rethinking, and trying again with an assignment sequence in which one instructor attempted to address the personal as well as the academic needs of students in the Program of Intensive English at the University of California at Santa Barbara. According to the guide, many of these…

Provides practical examples of assignments that increase the effectiveness of foreign language reading instruction. It is suggested that, by restructuring reading instruction, the role of the teacher will also be restructured. (12 references) (JL)

Reading can and should be a more widely used foreign language skill, and visual literacy in a foreign language goes beyond comprehension of basal reading materials. Authentic, real-life reading need not wait for foreign language mastery, but can begin at an early level if materials geared to the students' prior knowledge and interest are chosen.…

Examines the implications of the ACTFL Provisional Proficiency Guidelines for the writing curriculum. Argues that the functions identified in the guidelines should be practices in writing as well as in speech. Discusses error correction techniques and presents examples of writing assignments in Russian that elicit advanced-level functions. (SED)

Assignments prepared in pair-work have long been evaluated to be more successful when compared to individually prepared assignments in many respects in foreign language learning contexts. However, there is not much research conducted to reveal the advantages of pair-work in preparing assignments and the linguistic characteristics of the finished…

Argues that summarizing, paraphrasing, and precis writing skills are important to the development of critical thinking and the ability to learn from text. Describes the use of precis writing in the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classroom. (RS)

Teachers can encourage parental involvement and appreciation of studying Spanish through simple homework assignments. This article discusses how students and parents work together to discover the impact of the Spanish-speaking world on their surroundings. (Author)

Considerable research has now been undertaken into the development of different approaches to exploiting language corpora for pedagogic purposes in the context of ESP. The question of how language corpora might be utilized by students beyond the immediate language-teaching context is, however, one as yet seldom addressed in the literature. This…

It is proposed that "method" is not a relevant construct for fostering change in the second language classroom, and that concern with specific methods can divert educators' attention from important instructional issues. Teachers usually organize instruction around tasks rather than methods, and therefore it would be more useful to analyze,…