Discusses the need to be flexible and restructure foreign language departments and courses to meet student needs. Describes a four-year, second language program with a nonliterary emphasis, designed for nonforeign language majors as one way to do this. (EKN)

Reports on survey of beginning German at colleges and universities in the U.S. Results show grammatical knowledge is most important objective followed by speaking, listening, and reading comprehension, cultural awareness, then writing. Results indicate growth within the profession. (BK)

Akron's elementary language program is designed to prepare students for a systematic study of a foreign language. Akron emphasizes language as a necessity. Learning a foreign language on the elementary level seems to make children more aware of language in general and helps them to improve their skills in English. (JN)

Describes two NEH sponsored workshops for the development of foreign language and literature programs which took place at the San Francisco and Houston MLA meetings in 1979 and 1980. Resulting efforts to strengthen foreign language programs as essential components of humanistic education are illustrated by reports from 1979 workshop participants.…

Recapitulates some of the findings of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies decrying "Americans' incompetence in foreign languages". Criticizes certain attitudes and practices prevalent among university language professors, such as their indifference to the practical purposes of foreign language…

Describes Emory & Henry College's adoption and succesful use of the Dartmouth method based on attraction of students to program, retention of students, enthusiasm of college community and improved performance of students when compared to proficiency of students in simultaneously taught traditional courses. (Author/BK)

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)

Describes three systems for teaching foreign children German along with their native language. Concludes that teaching various subjects in the foreign language aids in learning the language. Discusses the use of films, cassettes, etc. in a bilingual teaching approach to natural sciences, mathematics, and other subjects. (IFS/WGA)

A program was developed at Eastern Michigan University because a student wanted to develop a business French vocabulary and to achieve an employable speed in French shorthand. The program provides cultural awareness, business administration, and foreign language skills at graduate and undergraduate levels. (JOW)

Finds that foreign language teaching (except English) is endangered under the present revised curriculum of the university-preparatory upper grades. Laments the curricular separation of English teaching in grades 5-10 from grades 11-13. Augmented courses are not getting results. Teacher qualification is negatively affected. (IFS/WGA)

Discusses what the college language department needs to communicate to the dean about what it does, including the substance of language, literature, and culture and the disparate teaching demands they create. Focus is on how realistic current staffing patterns are and how they may have to change for language departments to be allocated adequate…

Analysis of the responses to a survey regarding the instruction of language for specific purposes indicated that this instruction was an established part of the foreign-language curriculum at most of the responding four-year institutions. Courses were most likely to be at institutions that had professional schools, entry or exit foreign-language…

Reports on a survey of the textbooks used for first- and second-year German language instruction at 44 Canadian universities and colleges. (Author/MSE)

Describes the roles and intellectual contributions of foreign language methodologists in order to help other foreign language faculty work with them and understand their primary research interset in developing techniques and approaches that enhance language teaching. (CB)

Reviews research about orality and literacy. Since foreign language students are already somewhat literate in a first language, the traditional orality-based foreign language teaching should be revised to first teach reading and writing, the literacy skills. (DJD)