Reports on an experiment designed to evaluate the effects of "slowed speech" on language students' achievements in listening comprehension. Two second semester college level French classes provided the experimental and control groups. Contrary to expectations, pre- and postexperiment tests showed a significant drop in the experimental…

This study investigated the effects of three aspects of language testing (test task, familiarity with an interviewer, and test method) on both tester and tested. Data were drawn from several previous studies by the researcher. Concerning test task, data were analyzed for the type of topic students wanted most to talk about or preferred not to talk…

This paper presents arguments in favor of using partial dictation as a test of foreign language proficiency. In this kind of test, subjects listen to recordings of material in the foreign language and are required to fill in missing words in a written version of the recordings. Partial dictation is preferable to ordinary dictation in that: (1) it…

The papers in this volume discuss practical approaches to some of the current problems of degree-level language teaching. Section one discusses non-literary registers in advanced language teaching including the use of texts in teaching, suggestions for a course in practical sociolinguistics, and exercises for advancing from paraphrase to an…