This article addresses the questions: why is the development of conversational competence important within higher education? And how might this goal be pursued? We offer answers that may aid a broad range of stakeholders (language learners, course designers, lecturers, language development managers, and policy makers) in thinking through these…

Tasks can vary in terms of difficulty and implementation conditions, and these in turn may affect the nature of the language produced by the learner. There have been a large number of studies which have investigated the effects of these task properties and implementation conditions on the language the learner produces. To date, results have been…

This presentation is a case study of the Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) development of Mark, one of ten American students engaged in a desktop-videoconferencing telecollaborative exchange with a class of French students. Due in part to its inherent complexity, this context has not been widely researched. To observe ICC development, I…

Presents and compares findings from both teaching and learning diaries from French conversation courses, assembling and evaluating the perspectives of teacher, student, and researcher. (Author/VWL)

Examines the differences between explicit and implicit methods of teaching grammar in a university's advanced French conversation classes. Students taught explicitly performed better overall (in writing and orally) than students who were exposed to an implicit presentation of the same grammar content. (CB)

A large number of middle aged and retired French-speaking Canadians spend time in Florida during the winter months. While most of them have some knowledge of English, they have a need for communicative competence in English in some business and social situations. This ESP (English for Specific Purposes) syllabus development project attempts to…

This study presents a model for teaching a French conversation course on the college level. The research is based on French language classes in Quebec general education and professional colleges (CEGEP). The first part states the problem, examines several programs, describes the organization of the conversation classes, presents several language…

During the 1974-1975 school year eight itinerant French teachers travelled among 20 elementary schools teaching oral French to Grade 6 and Grade 7 students. Each teacher was responsible for two or three schools, The course was based on the book Le Francais Partout-Cours Preliminaire (1967) ed.). The study described in this report was initiated to…

Performance Evaluation in Foreign Language (PEFL) is a Title IV-C project based on Krashen's Monitor Model for second language acquisition. As such, it recognizes both natural learning (situations requiring spontaneous oral communication) and formal, traditional learning (reading, writing, translation, grammar, syntax). The PEFL Student…

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…