Provides short descriptions of the major standardized language proficiency tests currently available for English and French as a second language. Contains annotated lists of references on testing global language proficiency and communicative competence and on the testing of individual skill proficiencies. (EKN)

Discusses the experience of a committee at the University of Southern California that was formed to implement the university's requirement that foreign languages become a "Skill Level" requirement. This means that the student must meet the requirement by performing at a certain level on a proficiency examination. (SED)

To deal with the problem of subjectivity and multiple variables in the oral evaluations given in French foreign language classes, this study considers three main questions: (1) Which criteria should be evaluated; (2) How should these criteria be evaluated; and (3) What is the role of the institution in the evaluation? (SBR)

Describes techniques for measuring and developing the syntactic fluency of students learning French. (P M P)

Discusses a beginning course in French that includes a component designed to prepare students to function in the common cultural situations they are likely to encounter in France. Describes an accompanying exam testing oral proficiency which allows a group of 30 students to be thoroughly tested in three hours. (SED)

Describes the use of the cloze procedure in testing global communicative competence of university students of French. The topics covered are: the instrument and procedures, background of scorers, inter-scorer reliability, scoring methods, power of discrimination and validating of the tests. Paragraphs used in the experiment appear in the appendix.…

Eighty-five high school students of French were tested orally by an outside evaluator over a 2-month period. Includes several sample tests in a variety of formats as well as the questionnaire administered to students before and after the treatment to measure their attitudes toward French and oral evaluation. (Author/VWL)

This article discusses the factors related to successful achievement on advanced placement tests in French, and reports evidence showing that students with a bilingual home environment or having lived abroad, do better than students simply exposed to language instruction in American schools. (CLK)

A comparison of the French language proficiency of high school students taking the Advanced Placement (AP) Examination for French against college students in their sixth semester of French study found that the college students did slightly less well than the high school students. AP grading standards were more stringent than those used by college…

Compares the Paris Chamber of Commerce Exams (both certificate and diploma levels) and the ACTFL Guidelines for language proficiency for the benefit of language teachers. Teaching strategies are suggested for preparing students for the Chamber of Commerce exams. (LMO)