Presents the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages' guidelines for determining proficiency in writing, speaking, listening, and reading Arabic. Definitions for both generic and Arabic proficiency skills are provided for low-, mid-, or high-novice, -intermediate, and -advanced levels. (CB)

Replication of research on the relationship between universal grammar (UG) and second language learning studied Arabic-speaking learners of English. The present study's findings contradicted the previously supported theory regarding the importance of universal grammar to second language learning. (38 references) (CB)

Students following an Applied Language degree program conducted an introspective study of their learning of Russian. An evaluation of the study explored the source of initial difficulties in learning Russian, and revealed theoretical issues with implications for curriculum development. Arguments against presumed epistemological problems associated…

A validation study of the "semi-direct" Chinese Speaking Test (CST) directly compared college students' performance on the test with their performance on the "live" language proficiency interview. CST provided scoring results largely equivalent to those of the live interview, although examinees perceived CST to be more…

Describes attempts to formalize and characterize a theory of communicative competence, focusing on the advantages of a preference model (which identifies and grades learning variables in order of importance) and of models developed on the premise of parallel distributed processing (which suggest that such rule-based processing are in fact gross…

Aims to heighten teacher awareness of the semantic, syntactic, and phoneme-grapheme transfer problems that Chinese students face. Provides teaching suggestions involving phonology, vocabulary, syntax, and morphology. Urges reading teachers to use the visual modality to help make the transfer to the English script system more successful. (RS)

The German Club at Mayfield High School (New Mexico) plays an integral role in the school's German program. The "co-curricular" club motivates students with such activities as yearbook preparation; dance, choral, and dramatic recitals; video and Christmas parties; and picnics. Exchange students from German-speaking countries play active…

To mark the 40th anniversary of "Language Learning," the journal's first article is reprinted and identifies five motives for studying foreign languages: (1) "knowledge of a foreign language is the sign of a cultivated man"; (2) foreign insularism; (3) necessity of creating a political fusion; (4) trade and colonization; and (5) scientific and…

Presents a case study of a six-year-old Finnish girl who learned a foreign language by watching English language cartoons on video, without formal teaching or contact with native speakers. Topics addressed include television versus video; sentence structure; rate of speech; repetition; and learning by viewing versus naturalistic language learning.…

This article proposes a theoretical framework for teaching culture through language that suspends the traditional dichotomy between the universal and the particular in language teaching and embraces the particular as a platform for dialogue and as a common struggle to realign differences. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Motivation to study French was examined among first-year students using an extrinsic/intrinsic dichotomy approach to classify motivations. Students were found to be motivated by a wide variety of reasons, with personal or intrinsic reasons dominating. (Contains five references.) (Author/LB)

The properties of German as a special language of mechanical engineering are examined on the basis of a newly compiled corpus including samples from all important disciplines and discourse styles. The syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of passive voice are the chief research goal. (Contains five references.) (Author/LB)

The introduction of computer technologies into the regular school system has not been very successful, probably because of the lack of sound curricular integration. Proposals are offered for courseware development that will better fit into the modern languages curriculum. (Contains three references.) (Author/LB)

An earlier study of the sources of native speakers' perception of incoherence in English text produced by nonnative speakers was extended. Eighty subjects were tested using microcomputers rather than paper-and-pencil and again showed a strong effect for miscues and less significant effect for order of ideas. (Contains 32 references.) (Author/LB)

A Canadian bilingual ESL program for Cambodians was taught by an experienced English-speaking ESL teacher and a Cambodian-speaking coteacher. Observations, interviews, and journal analysis showed that a bilingual monocultural format encouraged student participation and peer teaching and that second-language learning was facilitated by…