An experiment compared group oral protocols of 37 native English-speaking subjects enrolled in a fourth-semester college French course making grammaticality judgments in English and French. Results indicate the subjects do not necessarily use the same strategies in rendering grammaticality judgments in first and second languages, casting doubt on…

Evaluates the International Baccalaureate (IB), a preuniversity, post-16, 2-year diploma. The IB contains four language features: communication and interaction, responsibility and transparency, language skills and contents related to the aims, and integration of program and assessment. The program compares favorably at higher levels with…

Investigates issues surrounding the use of tasks in oral tests with particular reference to group discussion. The article focuses on language testing, second-language acquisition, and discourse analysis to shed light on the selection of tasks for use in oral tests. (65 references) (Author/CK)

A holistic scoring procedure was used to rate spoken and written narratives produced by 10 students (ages 9-11) with language disorder and 30 matched peers. Correlations between holistic scores and structural measures of language revealed that quality judgements were moderately related to textual-level measures of form and content but were…

Examines the requirements of instructors of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) by surveying professors at four institutions of higher learning. Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that U.S. instructors' lecturing styles are becoming more interactive, a trend placing new expectations upon students. (31 references) (Author/CK)

Exploits Bourdieu's notion of legitimate language to analyze the social origins and consequences of language practices in a French-language minority high school. Findings reveal the contradictions between the socioeconomic values of social mobility attached to monolingual standard French and the political values of authenticity and solidarity…

Reviews current practices in foreign-language teaching in light of Bourdieu's theories of language and power to show how failing to assess discursive intent prevents students from understanding strategic use of language. Bordieu's model is then proposed as the basis for pedagogy that authorizes students to use their existing cognitive skills in…

A study of a bilingual program in a Deaf school in Minnesota examines the following: the principles primary grade teachers articulate and demonstrate as important for the use of American Sign Language (ASL) to teach English literacy; the strategies primary grade teachers use to teach English literacy through ASL; and how primary grade teachers use…

Reports a study investigating how multilingual language learners evaluate their own multilingualism, how they view the interaction of their different languages, and whether they think the different languages help or hinder them when speaking, listening, understanding, or writing the foreign languages. Ways in which these perceptions can be used to…

Describes how instruction and exposure contributed to the development of oral proficiency in English as a Second Language in mutually exclusive learning situations in Nepal. This study finds that both instruction and exposure contribute to second-language acquisition, the former promoting accuracy, the latter promoting fluency. (Author/VWL)

Examines the performance of Hungarian secondary school students on two types of unscripted tasks--an argument task and a narrative task. Focuses on grammatical patterns of learner language, and reports significant differences in the learners' performance. (Author/VWL)

Describes an experiment in the United Kingdom that brought together GCSE modern languages examination candidates and preservice language teachers via video conferencing, thus providing both groups with more practice in oral language. The article suggests that the use of video conferencing may be beneficial to all parties concerned, given the…

In this paper the acquisition and use of emphatic constructions by advanced guided learners of French, in particular (Dutch) first grade university students of French are studied and compared to the acquisition and use of emphatic constructions by (Dutch) secondary school pupils learning French in a purely institutional situation. It is shown that…

This article is one among a series of studies on the acquisition of patterns of linguistic variation observable in the speech of native speakers of Canadian French by French immersion (FI) students. The present study is centered on deletion of the central vowel schwa, a widespread feature of casual spoken French. In this study, FI students are…

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…