Projects related to the European Language Portfolio (ELP) carried out at the Language Centre of the University of Trieste are concerned to examine whether and to what extent "can do" descriptors can be extended to courses in Languages for Specific Purposes. The project reported in this article had two aims. The first was to explore what…

English for General Purposes (EGP) is a foundation course which should be taken by all the undergraduate students at the University of Tabriz, Iran. However, the EGP course cannot meet the students' objectives and needs. Evidently, it has some shortcoming and the results of the study indicate that it not only has lost its credibility but also has…

Provides an overview of a content-based postsecondary German language course that uses youth literature to teach about the Holocaust. Philosophical as well as pedagogical problems of dealing with the Holocaust in DaF instruction are included in the curriculum. Curricular considerations are presented that deal with course objectives, learning…

This article explores how teachers, students, and other stakeholders collaboratively develop classroom-based assessment procedures for the evaluation of oral skills. By considering crucial issues in assessment such as validity, teacher-learner collaboration, and contextual factors, the authors provide a checklist that will help ESL/EFL teachers…

This article presents a model of formative task-based language assessment implemented in the Chinese language program at the University of Iowa. The model was conceptualized from both empirical evidence, namely previous research done by other team members and me, and assessment theory, namely task-based learning and testing. Our formative…

This paper discusses the development of a syllabus for elementary-level college courses in the Japanese language, with a focus on course purpose, objectives, learning materials and resources, setting, learning activities, testing, and other considerations. It examines the characteristics of students who take elementary Japanese courses and reviews…

This master's thesis proposes that students experience optimal learning of a second language in a literature-based curriculum and when multiple methods of teaching are employed. The document includes a statement of the problems and challenges of second language learning, an overview of historical and theoretical aspects of teaching a second…

This study looked at articulation between high school and college Japanese instruction. The two-year study compared the attrition and performance of students who had had high school instruction in Japanese with students who first began their study after entering Indiana University . (Author/JL)