Oral work is considered the most effective way of laying the foundations for language proficiency. Recognition and production of vowels and consonants, use of a pronouncing dictionary, and practice in accent rhythm and intonation should all be included in a pronunciation course. (SC)

For adults, there is a correlation between the years of formal study of English and English proficiency. Formal instruction in general is more beneficial for second language learning than exposure to the second language in natural situations. The essential contributions of formal instruction are investigated. (Author/ND)

A group of 18 children from 5 to 12 years old in a FLES course in Mandarin Chinese were graded by three native speakers on their ability to repeat Mandarin Chinese sentences with which they were already familiar and on their ability to produce appropriate sentences to describe posters used in the Chinese class. These grades in Chinese were…

Discusses the facets of "communication capacity" most important in foreign language teaching. Paralinguistic means of communication are particularly emphasized. The main goal is application ("transfer"). These observations are based on an instructional model from beginning courses in French. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Discusses the assumptions underlying content-area reading instruction for native speakers of English, which also apply to students of English as a second language. This includes the need for providing guidance for students acquiring the concepts inherent in the content. (Author/HP)

Describes a 5-hour-weekly course in French as a third foreign language, for Grades 11-13--in particular, the students' motives in choosing the course, methodology, and the rapid transition from textbook work to work with supplementary materials to work with original texts. The course was judged successful. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A brief history of foreign language study in the U.S. is given and several popular language teaching theories described. Emphasizing the importance of learning communicative skills in the foreign language, various procedures for stimulating communication in the classroom are suggested. (CHK)

A system of grouping children by language ability was adopted by English as a second language teachers at an elementary school in Vancouver. Advantages of the level system are discussed. (SW)

The current approach in teaching Japanese as a second language is questioned as inefficient. The forward-looking approach does not condition students to expect that they must learn all the items of a set before being able to learn anything else. (HP)

In an effort to find an index of development for second language acquisition, compositions written by non-native speakers of English were classified into proficiency levels and analyzed. Measures that seemed most suitable as an index of development were average length of the T-unit and number of error-free T-units. (CHK)

Contends that the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) has some very serious defects. First, it does not test either the ability to speak or to write English. Second, it has strong cultural biases. Third, a relatively large number of right answers can be obtained by guesswork. (SED)

Reports on a longitudinal study of young immigrants' spoken Danish during the first months of their stay, focusing on the Albanian-, Vietnamese-, and English-speaking adolescents' syntactic development from a functional perspective. Changes in early syntax are seen as being rooted in cognitive as well as interactional dimensions of language use.…

Preliminary results of an extensive study of 50 native Yugoslav students who migrated to Denmark but still attended mother-tongue classes indicated that most had mastered the Danish language and used it with their peers and most learned their native language from their parents and continued to use it with them. (Author/CB)

Describes and assesses the general direction of French immersion research and establishes the need for more qualitative and theoretical approaches to research in this field. The areas of particular interest include (1)language learning environment; (2) children's language learning strategies; (3) classroom communication; (4) effective teaching…

Investigates the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness in Puerto Rican Spanish- and English-speaking children. Findings indicate that native language proficiency, as well as the degree of bilingualism, affect metalinguistic awareness, and that these effects interacted with the types of items in the metalinguistic tasks.…