Discusses strategies designed to cope with problems encountered at the college level that are caused by students' diversity in background and levels of competency. Alternatives to the lock-step method of instruction, with applicability at both the college and high school level, are described. (EJS)

Techniques and approaches used in a commercial French course offered at a state university are outlined. The course objective is to prepare American students for potential business experience or dealings in a French-speaking country. After background information about the course structure is given, the discussion focuses on the marketing segment,…

A collection of 25 essays dealing with Spanish for bilingual careers in business are included in this volume. The authors, including college faculty from 35 states, students, administrators, authors, and publishers, participated in a conference to exchange ideas on the development and implementation of university level business Spanish programs.…

Computer-assisted instruction for Hindi courses at the University of Illinois is described in relation to the technical aspects of programming Hindi on the PLATO system and the curriculum components. The program focuses on review of the materials already covered in class and building understanding of a number of grammatical constructions by using…

The motivation behind the curriculum design and evaluation procedures of the East Asian Summer Language Institute's Chinese school are discussed. Two instructional methods, learning model instruction and acquisition model instruction, are described. (23 references) (CB)

This report describes the design and development of the MASTER program, an autoinstructional model to supplement introductory foreign language courses, and examines its application in two French language courses offered at Brevard Community College. The first sections contain introductory material, a review of the literature on second-language…

Spanish, English, and American Indian languages in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico and bilingualism and language contact in the region are addressed in a collection of articles. Approaches to research in the languages of this region are discussed in articles by Valdes, Lope Blanch, and Brandt. Cultural and sociolinguistic…

"Application Performance," a supplemental drill in the Japanese language program at Oregon State University, is described as a way to develop students' communicative competence. The approach is a type of role play, with pairs of students preparing a dialogue according to a situation provided by the instructor and then performed in class.…

La Salle College's three-track Bilingual/Bicultural Master of Arts Program is described and its first operational year (September 1982 - August 1983) is evaluated. Track I served teachers of English as a second language, Spanish as a first language, and other classes within bilingual education programs. Track II served students from other fields…

A technique to help English as a second language students master the basic elements of expository prose is considered in terms of course objectives and the types of assignments used to accomplish them. A characteristic of many highly verbal students entering a college program is their propensity to "talk on paper" in an informal, ungrammatical,…

Situation comedy (sitcom) dialogs that are included in PLATO lessons for first year Russian students are described. These comprehension exercises make use of both the touch panel and the audio capabilities of PLATO. The sitcom dialogs were written by a native speaker of Russian and are based on the vocabulary in the textbook plus a small number of…

Despite a common attitude that it is very difficult, and possibly unwise, to try to teach Mandarin Chinese to speakers of other dialects, there is a social and academic need for this kind of course, and it is possible to teach it successfully to most students. In the University of Alberta's program the likely candidates are the large group of…

Computer assisted instruction in Latin and in English vocabulary development, which is used at the University of Illinois-Urbana, is described. The computer portion of the beginning Latin course consists of 40 lessons which provide drill and practice in vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. The program can be used either as a classroom supplement or…

A summary is presented of types of Esperanto materials available on PLATO--a general overview section, a picture introduction, lessons that accompany a textbook, vocabulary drills, crossword puzzles, dictation drills, reading practice, and a concentration game. The general overview lesson gives a comprehensive summary of the history and…

Presents several lesson plans using newspapers to develop critical thinking skills that the author has used in critical thinking, English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL), and English composition classes. Examines news writing, the inverted pyramid, organization and language usage, letters to the editor, and how to critically analyze survey results. (CH)