With a growing population of heritage language speakers in the United States and an increasing enrollment of heritage language learners (HLLs) in language classrooms (Beaudrie & Ducar, 2012; Carreira & Kagan, 2011), heritage language (HL) education has become a special concern within the language acquisition research community. Although…

The assessment of dual language immersion (DLI) students' proficiency in the partner language plays a key role in program evaluation. This article reports findings from a large-scale study, drawing on cross-sectional assessment data from 73 schools and longitudinal data from 25 schools. Students were tested in the interpretive (listening and…

This article describes a STARTALK intensive summer high school Mandarin language and culture program that was conducted for three summers. Participants across the three years included 40 Mandarin Level II and 53 Mandarin Level III high school students. Quantitative and qualitative data are presented to show the effectiveness of the program.…

This article examines what one university has done to prepare for its program review for recognition by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), a Specialized Professional Association (SPA) of NCATE. The history of the standards movement within higher…

Examines the impact on the second language skills of advanced high school Spanish students of Indiana University's 20-year-old intensive program abroad. Evidence indicates that resulting language skills exceeded those which might be expected in one full year of high school language instruction. (EKN)

This article reports on the Pittsburgh Public Schools Oral Ratings Assessment for Language Students (PPS ORALS) project, a Title VI Foreign Language Assistance Program grant-funded project to create an online testing Software program that makes large-scale oral testing in a world language not only feasible, but also easy to create, administer, and…

Describes the implementation and evaluation of the second year of a three-year pilot project to teach Japanese to students at a Pittsburgh elementary school. Analyses of students' performance indicate that they progressed considerably in developing proficiency in Japanese and that their teachers believed that more could be done to incorporate the…

Evaluates a bilingual/bicultural education pilot program in which native speakers of Vietnamese, Korean, Spanish, and English participated. Language classes were integrated within the overall curriculum. School attendance, motivation, language proficiency, and academic grades all improved. (PMJ)

Reviews effects on faculty, teaching assistants, curriculum, and students of the proficiency-based foreign language requirement instituted at the University of Pennsylvania. Although important and valuable changes have occurred in the language learning and teaching environment, caution is urged in creating realistic and well-understood standards…