Although cultural content is unavoidable as a backdrop for good language testing, cultural bias in testing English as a second language presents many dangers. A picture cue calling for a correct grammatical response may evoke an incorrect answer if the pictorial content is culturally coded. The cultural background behind a test must be accurately…

Two major hypotheses are currently at issue concerning the effects of semantic context on ambiguous word recognition: (1) the selective-retrieval hypothesis (SRH) maintains that a single meaning is retrieved from memory, and (2) the nonselective-retrieval hypothesis maintains that all meanings are retrieved from memory. To help clear up this…

This bibliography is divided into four main sections. The first section cites bibliographies dealing with language testing, while the second and third sections deal with books and articles in the same area. A fourth section lists test distributors' catalogues. Entries include publications from many countries. Most entries have been published since…

The self-instructional language program (SILP) allows students to learn, through a guided individualized study program, a foreign language not offered in the regular university curriculum. A director for the program offers the facilities and materials necessary for administering such a program. A tutor, who is a native speaker of the target…

Discussed are problems to consider and possible techniques to use in assessing the English speaking skills of bilingual children. Reviewed is literature on the reasons for differences in ease of acquisition of English speaking skills among bilingual children (such as personality variables) and on inadequacies of existing language assessment…

This report begins with a list of the publications of the national FLES Committee and an introduction in which T. Andersson describes how FLES programs can adopt bilingual education practices. Seventeen papers are included in the report. R. Bennett and M. Lala discuss how FLES programs can be individualized. Specific teaching techniques are…

To assess a child's communicative ability, it is important to develop not only measures of his understanding of vocabulary, but of his understanding of the syntax of language: patterns of words, regularities, and relationships of words in a sentence. Controlled test situations should be established in which the child receives minimal cues from the…

This report discusses the types and results of tests used on 142 "reasonably representative" American Indian bilingual students at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Major hypotheses of the study were that (1) there is a factor in the abilities of an English-as-a-second-language speaker which can be isolated…

The purpose of this book is to make readers, especially teachers, more conscious of language processes and of the components of teacher-child interactions that affect language acquisition. The papers in this volume, devoted to both the theory and practice of language training, were selected on the basis of what appear to be promising practices in…

This study attempted to explore the possibility of increasing sensitivity to syntactic structure by exposing subjects representing a range of ability to a programed sentence structure module. Students in three ninth grade classes who had completed four weeks of supplementary work with "English Sentence Structure: Programed Exercises" and scored 70…

This annotated bibliography includes materials for English as a second language published after 1960 which are available at the University of Hawaii libraries. Part 1 lists general works on methodology, testing, preparation and analysis of materials, and works for teacher training. Part 2 includes materials which concentrate on specific…

A 1-YEAR PROGRAMED COURSE IN BEGINNING FRENCH TESTED THE FEASIBILITY OF PROGRAMED LEARNING AND ISOLATED THOSE PROBLEMS PECULIAR TO TEACHING ON THE COLLEGE AND ADULT LEVEL. "THE ALLP PROGRAMED BEGINNING FRENCH COURSE," WHICH SPECIFIED THE ORAL SKILLS ONLY, WAS THE MAIN PEDAGOGICAL DEVICE USED. THE RESULTS OF THE PILOT PROGRAM SUPPORTED…

REVISIONS OF "THE ALLP FRENCH PROGRAM" (A 1-YEAR PROGRAMED COURSE FOR THE COLLEGE AND ADULT LEVEL EMPHASIZING ORAL SKILLS) AND THE RESULTS OF A SECOND TRIAL USE OF THE REVISED PROGRAM WERE REPORTED. THE REVISED FRENCH PROGRAM WAS DESIGNED TO OVERCOME THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE ORIGINAL PROGRAM AND SOUGHT TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE, LESS TIME…

This book contains lesson plans and language exercises for ESL teachers. The first part gives suggestions for testing in four areas: listening comprehension, oral production, reading comprehension, and writing ability. Thirteen sample tests are given in which the student must fill in each blank with the correct word. The section on content area…

Described is the Developmental Assessment of Spanish Grammar, an analysis procedure designed to evaluate the language of American Spanish-speaking children with deficient grammatical skills and to serve as a model for structuring language remediation. (Author/SB)