Describes conversational language course of exercises designed to single out mistakes students kept making in language lab and concentrate on exercises to correct them to enrich English with more complex structures not used by students spontaneously. Method can be used to proceed from closed to open conversation exercises. (Author/BK)

Presents an argument in favor of using de Tocqueville as a point of departure for French conversation classes for advanced undergraduate students. Gives samples of questions prompted by readings of de Tocqueville. (BK)

Describes a 1978 experiment in which French conversations (among advanced students of French) were transmitted by satellite from Hawaii to other locations in the Pacific. (AM)

Discusses research in listening comprehension and proposes model for listening comprehension activities in college French conversation courses. (BK)

Describes the undergraduate internship in conversation at New Mexico State University, a course which attempts to improve the oral communication of basic language classes. The course offers undergraduates opportunities to hold conversations with more advanced undergraduates in weekly meetings. In order to make the class nonthreatening, neither…

Suggests principles and activities for the development of conversational competence in second-language learners. Shows that materials and activities traditionally used in language teaching fail to address the interactional dimension of conversation. Draws on conversational analysis, classroom discourse, and communicative competence to create a…

Discusses an introductory course in basic conversational Spanish that raised enrollment. It is noted that the course interested students who desired a basic knowledge of spoken Spanish and those students who feared failure in regular courses. It was found that some students later enrolled in regular courses. (Author/AMH)

A description of a German conversation class organized around video production projects includes the pedagogical rationale, course format, and detailed descriptions of individual taping projects. (17 references) (Author/CB)

Describes a program that has been a requirement for Hofstra University students majoring or minoring in French for six years. The program offers 20-25 minutes per week of individual conversation sessions with native level speakers. Criteria for selection of personnel and diagnosis of each student's needs are discussed. (MES)

More foreign-language professors are stressing speaking rather than grammar in their courses. They are encouraging their students to talk as much as 90 percent of the time. At the heart of the new approach is the concept of "proficiency"--what the student can do with the language. (MLW)

Describes an activity for use in the conversational English-as-a-foreign-language classroom. The activity involves having each student say one or two sentences that continues a story being made up as the activity goes along. Students were positive about the activity, because saying only one or two sentences helped them not to feel pressured or…

A program is described in which Spanish-speaking senior citizens volunteered to meet with first- and second-year language students twice weekly on a one-to-one basis for unstructured conversation. Both students and staff benefited, and results show the practical value of integrating such a conversation lab into the regular foreign language…

The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (New York) has developed a course for students with at least semi-intelligible speech, to improve their effectiveness when conversing in English with non-signing hearing partners. Lectures, discussions, and activities foster self-awareness, pragmatic facility, and communicative competency. Student…

The procedures outlined in this paper have been used in English as a second language (ESL) conversation classes at the University of Guam. The technique is based on the training-group model used in sensitivity training and the "buzz group" technique taught in communications courses. The procedure is found useful because it provides an economic use…

A program was developed at the University of Pittsburgh to improve the English language proficiency of foreign teaching assistants (TA's) in order to alleviate communication problems between them and the undergraduates in their classes. Three aspects of the program are described: (1) interdepartmental procedures, (2) testing procedures, and (3)…