Reviews Faerch and Kasper's model (1983) of communication strategies and demonstrates that it is too rigid to have a sound psychological foundation. The article argues for more emphasis on studying learners' strategies from a discourse analyst's perspective and touches on the interrelation between language, culture, and personality in verbal…

Reports on a questionnaire relating to French in the primary school sent to foreign language advisors who represented local education authorities in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that in more than half of the authorities represented in the survey, less than 10% of schools teach a foreign language in Key Stage 2. French is the dominant…

Examines methodological issues related to the approach to be used in writing a textbook for foreign language students of Russian. These issues center around practical communication; the treatment of grammar; and the use of the target language, authentic materials, and audiovisual materials. Results indicate that grammar explanations and complete…

Argues that the possibility of working together unobserved on language learning tasks helps students to formulate and articulate their perceptions of how the linguistic structure of the foreign language functions. It is suggested that students' perceptions of how the computer helps them to learn the language can provide a blueprint for the…

Examines the rationale behind the Self-Access Language Learning Center at the University of Abertay Dundee (Scotland), outlines some practical considerations, and looks for future developments. The growth in popularity of self-access learning is due to the fact that it is learner centered and to the flexibility it offers over entirely class-based…

Discusses the Graded Objectives for Adults Learning (GOLF) Russian program. The aim of the GOLF program is to have four levels, with Level Four being considered equivalent to a good GCSE pass, at which stage students will have a good working knowledge of the language and a wide vocabulary. (CK)

Examines whether mnemonic strategies can be successfully applied to the learning of a non-Roman foreign-language alphabet. Students were given materials presenting Russian letters and their English sounds on each page. Beneath each letter was a mnemonic. Findings indicate that these strategies enhance the learning speed of non-Roman…

Discusses the focus of foreign-language graduate programs on preparing students for their careers. The article argues that the spread of teaching-methods courses and the interest in the utility of education has transformed these programs into hybrids that lack intellectual discipline. The article concludes graduate programs in foreign languages…

Examines whether the "foreign language effect", that is, a temporary decline of thinking ability during foreign language processing, is larger when similarity between a foreign language and a native language is less. The results of two divided-attention experiments indicate that this effect was larger when the native tongue was less…

Two Japanese undergraduate students were taught to pronounce and discriminate English words containing unfamiliar phonemic contrasts. Teaching pronunciation was found to be easier than teaching listening discrimination. Teaching listening discrimination resulted in collateral improvement in pronunciation, and, to a lesser extent, vice versa.…

This article proposes a new type of pronunciation test, based on the variability principle and language continuum paradigm developed by Tarone (1983, 1985). Trials with 80 elementary and 73 university students indicate that the test distinguishes between subjects with and without phonetic training and is generally reliable and valid. Contains 31…

A trait of the scholarly tradition of France is explication de texte, associated in the past with philology and the translation of classical texts. This tradition reemerges as a compromise between demands of the communicative approach for practical language skills and the broader linguistic and cultural objectives of foreign language learning.…

Discusses the need to start second-language learning in the primary grades and the budget constraints impeding implementation of early second-language education. The article advocates using the young children themselves to persuade school administrators and parents to support the teaching of second-language courses in the primary grades. (CK)

Spanish is the language recommended for "at-risk" students because of the correlation between the oral and written language. Students with dyslexia and other language problems can benefit from a suitable teaching method coupled with instructional materials and class activities that address their particular learning disorders. (four references)…

Examines the effect of test method on the reading performance of two levels of early-stage second-language (L2) readers of French. The study compares two global response modes, the summary and the recall protocol. Results indicate a significant qualitative difference in the performance on the two tasks. The summaries contained significantly more…