Five units of instruction for teaching vocabulary and higher order thinking skills in foreign language classes are presented. Introductory material considers the differences between language fluency and communication, and lists higher order thinking skills as: (1) classifying, verifying, hypothesizing; (2) making associations and generalizing; (3)…

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)

In a study of learners' levels of comfort with language activity types allowing differing degrees of interaction, 110 first-year college students of French, Spanish, and Italian were surveyed at a university and community college. Results suggest the value of activities facilitative of negotiated interaction. The questionnaire is appended. (10…

Describes a summer intensive advanced German language program at the University of Texas at Arlington that has been conducted since 1975. Discusses course organization, teaching methods, class activities, testing, and the success of the program in terms of increasingly higher achievement ratings. (MES)

Communication-based teaching techniques are described that lead German language students from input to output in a stimulating and motivating learning environment. Input activities are most useful for presenting speech acts, vocabulary, and grammar; output activities, for fine-tuning those areas as well as for expanding students' productive…

Satellite television is proposed as a useful source of authentic materials for French language instruction at the college level. It is argued that this medium illustrates to students that the language is used in a wide variety of everyday situations and contexts. The discussion begins with a brief description of common satellite technology,…