Discusses the work of Seiichi Makino, a scholar of Japanese, noting that his work in establishing the Japanese proficiency guidelines helped make it appear that Japanese language teaching was part of mainstream American language teaching. (Author/VWL)

Explores the effect on pair-task performance of test-takers' familiarity with their partner. Japanese learners performed a series of tasks, once with a friend and again with a person who was not familiar to them. Results support findings in the literature that suggest learners vary their language when interacting with familiar or unfamiliar…

The behavior of native English speakers and Japanese English as second language (ESL) learners on word association tasks was investigated. Research has shown that Japanese adults respond in Japanese in an identifiably different way than English speaking adults respond in English, and that native English speaking children demonstrate a…

Discusses the differences between the English native and nonnative speaker's creation and use of nominal compounds. A comparison between English speakers and Japanese native speakers indicates that not only must nonnative speakers acquire rules in order to effectively compound words in English, but that rules must indeed exist, indicating that…

Examines the role of American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) guidelines in language proficiency testing, focusing on Japanese language instruction and discussing how effective that system is in relation to university classroom instruction. Two main issues are addressed: viewing ACTFL Proficiency Tests as having the…

Overviews the numbers and kinds of students taking college-level Japanese courses currently, their motivations and challenges, and some of the ways in which Japanese is different from the more commonly taught languages. Notes that for the first time in United States history the study of a language outside the Indo-European family, i.e., Japanese…

The status and priorities of the teaching of East Asian languages were discussed in eight papers presented at a 1981 conference. The topics addressed include: (1) the need to give language teaching a higher priority as a national concern; (2) the role of the federal government in East Asian language study; (3) the teaching of Japanese, Korean, and…

It is proposed that Master's in Business Administration (MBA) degree programs integrate Japanese language instruction in order to train business people to be sensitive to cultural differences and capable of operating effectively and comfortably in Japanese environments. The discussion begins by presenting some issues concerning traditional MBA…

The benefits of learning a foreign language and arguments in support of language requirements in the college curriculum are discussed. The arguments concerning the acquisition of indirect benefits not inherent in the language skill itself through the learning of a foreign language prove inconvincing and only serve to divert one's attention from…

Papers in this volume on individualized instruction in foreign languages include: (1) "Individualized Instruction and 'Back to Basics': Are They Compatible?" by Howard B. Altman; (2) "Individualized Instruction in French at Northwestern University" by Margaret Sinclair Breslin; (3) "An Individualized French Program for…