Discusses the dichotomy between traditional expectations of advanced courses and the actual capabilities of many of the present generation of language students. One result of this dichotomy has been the disappearance of medieval and philological studies from the teaching programs of most modern- language degree schemes in the United Kingdom. (CK)

Discusses problems inherent in the content of modern language syllabuses. True communication occurs when the focus of classroom activities is on the message. The success of the lesson derives from the quality of the presentation and, crucially, the vocabulary list and the pupils' prior knowledge of the concepts underlying the content. (six…

Presents the results of research designed to explore the possibilities of expanding the number of students in Arabic studies departments and to develop recommendations for admissions policies and course structures. There is a need for cooperation among Arabic departments on innovation in language teaching and for an improved image of Arabic…

After a brief introduction to the development of New Phonics, an innovative course designed for Japanese English-as-a-foreign-language learners, this article describes the contents of the course for beginners, i.e., the techniques, exercises, and teaching materials for grade 7.(Author/VWL)

The e-Lective Language Learning System is designed to promote language learning by incorporating target-language text and a variety of first- and second-language dictionary and learning-strategy supports into a multimedia CD-ROM design. Any text in electronic form can be imported into the system. It differs from conventional computer-assisted…

The following article discusses cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies and the use of them particularly among bilingual students. It distinguishes between the two types of strategies. Strategy use among monolingual and bilingual students are described and compared. The article focuses on the need for strategy instruction, particularly…

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…

This paper, a portion of a workshop presentation concerning language curriculum for the non-major, explores some of the reasons for the sad situation in which language programs find themselves today and makes some suggestions for some of the things which we need to do in order to make ourselves more attractive to the students, particularly to the…

This booklet consists of a list of instructional objectives and a content outline for the beginning and intermediate levels of the Montgomery County (Maryland) public ESL program. The publication was prepared to identify performance objectives and to provide guidelines for teachers and administrators, both for teaching and for forming realistic…

This curriculum guide is designed for a course based on Ovid's poetry. It includes a statement of the broad goals and performance objectives of the course, a summary of course content, suggestions for the expansion of material, sample evaluations, and a list of references. (PMP)

Most textbooks for teaching foreign languages have as their basis a grammatical syllabus. The theory has been that it is easier for students to learn a language if they are exposed to one part of the grammatical system at a time. Recently critics have questioned this theory, arguing that the grammatical syllabus fails to provide the necessary…

English for academic-purposes courses are often regarded as self-contained entities. Sufficient attention is paid neither to interrelations with other aspects of language teaching nor to relevant sources of research. Suggested areas of future investigation include language-teaching research and classroom research. (Author/CB)

Argues that a truly learner-centered approach in second language teaching should be concerned with allowing learners a greater role in the management of their learning by providing opportunities for learner choice in the method and scope of study. Reports on experiments in this approach at the University College of Bahrain. (SED)

Describes various projects of the Didascalia computer-assisted language-learning research center, reflecting major steps in the development of the center and illustrating facets of the prevailing bottom-up approach: from the general lexical programs towards the more contextualized, to the company specific, to the language testing programs. (15…

Describes a prototype of computer-assisted language learning software, "BUSCA," that attempts to bridge the gap between commercially available, but pedagogically unsound, Spanish Foreign Language learning programs. The article notes that "BUSCA" is designed to be integrated into a formal course to assist students to become…