To help educators make informed decisions about English language learners (ELLs), this Connecting Research to Practice brief provides an overview of key research findings, highlights federal policies related to ELLs, outlines district-level and school-level action opportunities, and lists resources that offer more information. English language…

Subjects were 45 Italians who were studying English as a second language. They were administered the Modern Language Aptitude Test and a cloze test and were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their language study. The researcher then analyzed the interrelationships among the subjects' linguistic aptitude, language study history, and level…

Recent research by Valette, Oller, and others has shown the utility of dictation as a measure of general language competence when correlated with achievement and proficiency batteries for French and English as a second language. No such studies have been conducted with Spanish. The investigator hypothesized that since Spanish is a phonetic…

THE EFFECT OF EXPOSURE TO FRENCH IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES (FLES) ON LATER LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND PERFORMANCE IN FRENCH COURSES IN HIGH SCHOOL WAS EVALUATED. ONE GROUP OF 17 HAD BEEN GIVEN ABOUT 1 HOUR A WEEK OF AUDIOLINGUAL TRAINING BEGINNING IN GRADE 3. THE OTHER GROUP OF 15 BEGAN FRENCH IN GRADE 9. BOTH GROUPS WERE ADMINISTERED THE MLA…

Summarized in this report is an investigation involving the speaking and auditory comprehension skills in Spanish for secondary school students. Two objectives of the study were to organize the Spanish language into basic syntactic structures and to prepare a description of expected learner performance for each of the structures. Proposals, based…

SIX ACHIEVEMENT TESTS IN DIFFERENT SUBJECT AREAS THAT WERE ADMINISTERED TO COLLEGE FRESHMEN RESULTED IN BETTER PERFORMANCES BY STUDENTS WITH A FOREIGN LANGUAGE BACKGROUND. DESPITE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS OFFERED (INTELLIGENCE, MOTIVATION), THE SUPERIORITY PERSISTS WHEN COMPARISON IS MADE WITH CITY HIGH SCHOOL PRODUCTS, GRADE POINT AVERAGE, OR HONOR…

This paper describes an experimental testing program in England which parallels a broader, 1967 study concerning second language acquisition in the United States. The earlier study, conducted by John Carroll, concentrated on determining proficiency of language majors in five foreign languages. This experiment limits the field of study to German…

This two-phase experiment was conducted to determine: (1) whether foreign language aptitude as measured by standard aptitude tests (Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery, Carroll-Sapon Modern Language Aptitude Test) can be significantly increased by training, and (2) whether increases in language aptitude so obtained would result in better language…

The Aural Grammar Test was designed to assess aural grammatical competence for language presented in a formal situation. The subjects used in this initial development of the test were 147 Toronto high school students learning French as a second language. The test is described and the results are interpreted in terms of both the explicit and…

The difference between "foreign language learning" and "second language learning" is not clear because writers do not agree on the criteria to be used in making the distinction. Moreover, there is a lack of empirical evidence to justify the use of the two terms. The purpose of this study is: (1) to review the various criteria…

High school students studying French as a second language in Toronto were administered a questionnaire and a variety of achievement tests in French. Results were analyzed to determine the effects of learner characteristics on the development of second language competence. Four factors in learning success were posited: attitude, strategy, aptitude,…

The objective of this study is to assess whether arts-based curriculum facilitates the acquisition of English as a Second Language without sacrificing proficiency in the first language (in this case, Spanish). The paper has two chief parts, one theoretical, the other empirical. In the first part, similarities between authentic arts-based…

The state of the art of language testing in England is examined through the conference proceedings presented in this text. The nine chapters, written by individual authors, include discussion of the General Certificate of Education examinations, nonschool examinations, oral tests, research by examining boards, continuous assessment, and…

This paper examines some experimental evidence relating to the influence of second language learning on native language performance, including results from elementary school Latin programs, research on bilingualism and intellect, and elementary school programs in modern languages. Some studies of Latin FLES programs show that specially designed…