The Critical Period Hypothesis aims to investigate the reason for significant difference between first language acquisition and second language acquisition. Over the past few decades, researchers carried out a series of studies to test the validity of the hypothesis. Although there were certain limitations in these studies, most of their results…

In 1989, the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT) celebrated its silver anniversary at a conference designed to provide participants with an opportunity both to reflect on the past and to look at the future of foreign language teaching and of SCOLT in the light of a quarter century of experience. Seven of the papers in this volume were…

In November l982, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) published the ACTFL Provisional Proficiency Guidelines, a series of descriptions of proficiency levels for speaking, listening, reading, writing, and culture in a foreign language. The history, origins, objectives, and implications for language teaching of those…

This history of bilingual education in the United States begins with the advent of the Spanish in the early 16th century, and traces the development of the phenomenon to the present. Chapters cover (1) early immigration of Spanish and Germans before the Revolution, (2) early 19th century xenophobia, (3) bilingual schooling in the early 19th…

The accomplishments of Theodore "Tug" Andersson (1903-1994) cover four major areas: (1) the teaching of modern languages in general; (2) the foreign languages in the elementary school (FLES) in particular; (3) bilingual education in the United States; and (4) preschool biliteracy. The 11 articles of Andersson's work are as follows: (1)…