Individualized German Instruction at the College Level–A First Appraisal

Abstract

ABSTRACT An individualized instruction course in beginning and intermediate German was initiated as an alternative to other programs at the University of California at Berkeley. This study describes materials and methods used in scheduling and teaching the course, student performance, and reactions to the course by students and instructors. At the end of the first year a testing program was administered to evaluate performance in the individualized instruction course and to compare it to the basic course, using pretested equivalent groups as samples. Individualized instruction groups performed as well as or better than the basic course groups on all measures. An analysis of student‐instructor contacts shows that these results were achieved in approximately one‐third of the instructional time needed for teaching the same material in the basic course. The study concludes that individualized foreign language instruction seems to offer a basically sound alternative to other programs and that its continuation and further refinement are justified.