Examines the role of tension in the process of instructed second/foreign language acquisition on the basis of findings from a comprehensive ethnography of the 7-week intensive beginners' class in the summer French School of Middlebury College. This project completes and challenges the current research paradigm on language anxiety as it shifts the…

Describes an investigation of whether grades in an intensive French course could be predicted by combining information obtained in a brief interview conducted by the teacher with information from academic records. Results showed that overall grade point average is the best single predictor of performance in foreign language courses. (SED)