Describes Independent German Language School of Connecticut including founding of school, curriculum, staffing, help from German Language School Conference, and fundraising. Concludes increasing enrollment indicates Saturday school movement is filling gap in teaching German in U.S. and is necessary to promote an alternative method to further…

Describes an advanced English-as-a-second-language program that features debate as a means of preparing foreign college students to compete with English-speaking students. (FL)

Reviews the history of the "pilot scheme" for introducing French into the curriculum of British primary schools, highlighting the project's limitations and the negative findings of the National Foundation for Educational Research report, and assesses the prospects for the future of the project. (AM)

Reports on the findings and recommendations of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies, which was concerned with the elementary and secondary curriculum. (IRT)

Summarizes preliminary results from a survey started during the 1979 fall semester for the purpose of identifying textbooks used in beginning German courses at college/university level and analyzing curricular factors relating to the programs surveyed. Describes data as based on 189 responses to a questionnaire sent to 222 departments. (MES)

Suggests that an institution's use of a critical mass of full-time, tenured and tenured-track faculty members provides a measure for judging the quality of undergraduate education. Presents a table that gives the average percentages of undergraduate course sections taught by full- and part-time instructors in different types of English and foreign…

Suggests that support from the institution receiving a foreign language program grant is essential to the program's life and longevity and that institutions should be encouraged by the funding agencies to meet their expressed, supportive commitments. Suggestions are given on how to make a grant-funded curricular project work. (GLR)

A one-semester course in Schwyzertutsch is described. The Swiss German dialect is taught as the twenty-sixth language in the noncredit extension service of the University of Queensland. (LB)

Describes the development of a project designed to build a positive role for peer observation in a language program, reports the reactions of the participants, and gives guidelines for the use of peer observation in a language program. (seven references) (GLR)

Integration of Francophone culture into the language curriculum rests on a suggested three-step approach, involving extensive student research. Goals are (1) recognition of the geography of French-speaking regions; (2) sensitivity to cultural components (e.g., music, art); and (3) familiarity with at least one significant political, historical,…

The popularity of French second language instruction, the rebirth of bilingual education, and efforts to establish links with French industry locating in Eastern Europe offer an example to France. It is clear that Eastern Europe views bilingualism as a means of revitalizing the region's role in the European community. (MSE)

Argues for the inclusion of courses in phonetics and phonology in college Italian programs, claiming that the myth of Italian as a phonetic language blurs the clear need for such training and that students actually require advanced coursework in phonetics and phonology to improve their articulation and pronunciation. (43 references) (Author/CB)

The push for the English-only literacy approach sends the wrong message to language-minority families. The Arlington (Virginia) Public Schools have established first-language pilot programs to accelerate Latino students' academic achievement and have welcomed community-based educational initiatives. A family-literacy program motivates parents to…

Discusses the United States' significant need for communicative competence in other languages and relevant problems with the higher education system. Addresses the lack of student interest, structural problems, the foreign language mission, institutional challenges and strategies, inter-institutional collaboration, and technology. (EV)

Describes a survey of staffing patterns in modern languages at the college level for the 1996-97 academic year. Questionnaires were sent to 154 foreign language departments in a stratified sample chosen from among departments participating in at least one Association of Department of Foreign Languages (ADFL) summer seminar during the 1992-96…