Cautions against a "synonymic" or "structural-semantic" approach to constructing texts and in reading them. Concern over matching each foreign word with a native-language word results in limiting the vocabulary of the text and the student's knowledge. Speech-act theory suggests a more flexible approach. (IFS/WGA)

Reviews several publications dealing with comparison of Italian and German, with a view to ascertaining how useful their material might be in constructing an Italian textbook for Germans. The material is found to be too theoretical, or too limited to the standpoint of German as a foreign language. More error analysis is needed. (IFS/WGA)

Pedagogical grammar is the presentation of grammatical information for teaching purposes. Two important distinctions are relevant here: reference books versus teaching grammars programmed into a course, and generalized versus specialized grammars, (depending on the extent to which they have been designed to meet specific teaching/learning…