This article analyzes the growing trend among US higher education institutions to replace four-semester, proficiency-oriented language requirement models with shorter exposure-oriented sequences frequently restricting exemptions and aimed at bringing languages into distribution requirement structures. By contrasting the history, strengths, and…

Describes a series of courses developed by Seattle University's foreign language department in cooperation with the professor of military science which tries to relate foreign language study to the specific needs of the ROTC cadets. The normal five-quarter credit course has been restructured into a series of variable credit courses. (SED)

Argues that (1) English should be a compulsory foreign language in Finnish schools; (2) options to teach subjects in foreign languages should be expanded; and (3) the variety of foreign language choices in rural areas of Finland should be enlarged. (SK)

Many educational institutions have already determined that American Sign Language (ASL) is indeed a language, that it has a culture, and it is sufficiently foreign to fulfill a foreign language requirement. Consequently, schools and universities struggle to place ASL in the context of academic foreign language programs. The challenge is to develop…

This article addresses a number of common confusions that characterize much of the debate about the status of American Sign Language (ASL) as a foreign language option. The article begins with a broad overview of the nature and characteristics of different kinds of signing as they are used in the deaf culture and between the deaf and hearing…

The British Undersecretary of State for Education and Science and the parent of a school-age son with cerebral palsy looks at implications of the new National Curriculum for children with special needs including individual statements declaring individualized applications, the foreign language requirement, flexibility for pupils with dyslexia,…

A research sample of 56 college and universities provides nationally representative descriptive data on the linguistic theory and applied linguistics content in the curriculum of graduate programs in bilingual education in the United States. Suggests directions for change in such curricula. (Author/LMO)

This article explores some of the complexities of the question as to whether or not American Sign Language (ASL) is a foreign language. It reviews the historical oppression of the deaf, the development of ASL and its defining value to proponents of deaf culture, mentions other language systems (including foreign sign systems) used by the…