The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Proficiency Guidelines are first reviewed and analyzed, followed by an analysis of the Spanish language writing produced by students at a very selective, private university who were enrolled at different levels of Spanish language study. (75 references) (LB)

A brief history of foreign language study in the U.S. is given and several popular language teaching theories described. Emphasizing the importance of learning communicative skills in the foreign language, various procedures for stimulating communication in the classroom are suggested. (CHK)

Discusses how native speakers of Spanish, accustomed to dealing with nonnative Spanish speakers, evaluated 18 taped nonnative speech samples that provided a wide sample of pronunciation. Comprehensibility, voice agreeability/ disagreeability, and nativeness of accent were rated. (32 references) (LB)

Describes an experiment designed to determine which language errors interfere to the greatest degree with comprehension by native speakers of the language. For this purpose, an instructor prepared a list of most serious Spanish language errors which was submitted to native speakers for evaluation in terms of comprehension and acceptability. (MES)

Two questions are examined: the relationship between prior to formal experience (high school instruction) and success on university foreign language proficiency tests, and the similarity of prior experience to pass rates for students of varying languages. (LB)