FL Classes Research Articles

Motivating Bilingual and Semibilingual University Students of Japanese: An Analysis of Language Learning Persistence and Intensity among Students from Immigrant Backgrounds

ABSTRACT FL teachers in the United States often encounter the problem: how best to assist their bilingual and semibilingual students from immigrant backgrounds. Interviews with American Shin Nisei (new second‐generation Japanese) university students reveal how strongly motivation influences their persistence in taking Japanese courses and the intensity with which they use Japanese outside the classroom. First, valence and self‐efficacy are critical in predicting students' persistence in studying Japanese at the university, while self‐confidence influences powerfully the students' use of Japanese for verbal communication outside the classroom. Second, most students do not have specific short‐term language goals other than passing Japanese courses with good grades, although many do have nonspecific long‐term language goals which influence their active learning in speaking Japanese, but not in reading and writing. The conclusion stresses problems facing Shin Nisei students in traditional college FL classes and discusses how teachers can help improve students' motivation.

The Communicative Language Teaching “Revolution” Tested: A Comparison of Two Classroom Studies: 1976 and 1993

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to measure empirically whether beginning FL classes are more communicative now than they were 17 years ago. Two sets of classroom obsewations, which form the basis of the study, were designed to observe the types and amounts of speaking activities in which beginning foreign language students engage, in order to determine how and to what extent students practice the language artificially in drills and other forms of pseudocom‐munication, and how and to what extent they use the foreign language as a real means of communication. The results of the 1993 investigation were then compared with data from a similar study completed in 1976, so that change in classroom speaking activities over the past 17 years could be measured.Using an observation tool which divided talk on a scale of least selection by the speaker as in repetition drills to total selection such as in free expression‐or “real communication” (RLC), as it is called in this study‐the results indicate an increase in RLC for both students and teachers, and a shift toward 12 as the language of instruction.

A language-teaching machine: Input, uptake and output in the communicative classroom

In two FL lessons with substantial amounts of undirected student-student talk, post-lesson protocols were used to compare learner uptake from teacher and from peers. Teacher/materials input was found to give a far higher uptake rate than peer input, for which several reasons may be cited. In proficiency-streamed FL classes, for example, any “knowledge gap” between peers is likely to be minor compared to that between teacher and student; peer recycling in message-focused phases almost certainly assists the internalization of input highlighted in earlier meaning-focused phases; and urgent, message-focused communication gives relatively few chances for metalinguistic highlighting—an act which seems to be a precondition for conscious uptake. The protocols also showed that at least some learners were aware of proceduralization and skills-development processes during free communication. It is suggested that the validity of free-communication activities in the typical proficiency-streamed FL class lies not so much in the peer input they supply as in the interactive output they generate. As peer input per se may be of high acquisition value, however, students should be given control not only of message-focused activities, but also of initial highlighting of meaning.

Foreign Language Learning Differences: Affective or Native Language Aptitude Differences?

immersing an adult in a foreign language culture would force or motivate that individual to learn the language.' In the same audience sat a woman who admitted to having spent two years in each of three northern European countries with her husband, who had failed to learn any of the languages involved.2 Testimonials continued as conference participants relayed their various frustrating experiences with learning a foreign language. Why the topic of learning a FL was even discussed at a conference on dyslexia is an appropriate question. Its answer forms the springboard for our hypothesis here: namely, that students who experience difficulties learning a FL may have native language problems that impact upon their L2 learning as it is currently taught in schools. In this paper, we use the terms FL and L2 interchangeably to refer to the learning of an unfamiliar language. Dyslexia, a disability associated with reading and writing difficulties in individuals with average to superior intelligence (104; 120; 121), is one such native language disability. Learning disabilities (hereafter LD), defined in Public Law 94-142 (Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975) as . . a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written . .. , is the generic term. For the past five years the authors, both LD specialists, have been studying the native and FL learning characteristics of high school and college s udents who are unable to fulfill FL requirements.3 In reviewing research on LD and dyslexia, we have found numerous references alluding to the difficulties these students have in FL classes. Many of these at-risk learners are diagnosed as LD only after college entry and only after failure in FL classes.4 Our recent explorations into the FL research literature indicate that FL educators, too, have been puzzled by the dilemma of why some persons learn a FL quickly and easily while others, given the same opportunities to learn, fail at the task. Among FL educators, these students commonly have been referred to as underachievers.5 Aptitude and motivation for learning a FL have been issues of concern among FL educators in their search to understand indi-

The Priority of Conducting FL Classes in the Target Language

The Priority of Conducting FL Classes in the Target Language

Student Evaluation and Foreign Language Programs ‐ A Case Study

ABSTRACT Using questionnaires returned by randomly selected students, we studied the FL laboratory and department of State Supported University. The students' evaluation proved important because it revealed discrepancies between the faculty's and the students' views. The majority of students did not find their FL classes interesting and wanted all FL requirements abolished. They disliked laboratory work; however, they wanted the laboratory to remain open if it were programmed imaginatively and run efficiently. To find the basis for these opinions, we examined the students' comments and studied the management and personnel of the department.

Processing and Displaying Speech Patterns for Use in the FL Class

One cannot expect a completely accent-free speech in the elementary FL course because time must be spent on the grammatical structures so that the student will be able to generate sentences that are grammatically acceptable to a native speaker of that language. Of course, the phonological system is an integral part of the level of competency and performance that the student must exhibit, but the finer points of the sound system may be executed in the intermediate and advanced years. The teacher must make clear to the student that languages vary in their phonological make-up. The student can be trained to perceive these distinctions, but he may have difficulty in producing what he hears, since his auditory feedback system does not have sufficient information to allow him to correct his articulatory movements. The author has developed a process by which verbal skill is enhanced by a visual representation of the sound. This enables the student to hear the sound he is producing and at the same time view a display of the sound on an oscilloscope. This produces a situation of immediate reinforcement, whether positive or negative, and allows the student to vary the position of the articulators while viewing the production in order to produce a sound that will fall within the allophonic range of the model and will be an acceptable approximation of that sound to a native speaker. This process appears most effective with the vowels.

What Does the Pennsylvania Foreign Language Research Project Tell Us?

ABSTRACT: Although the design of the study was exemplary, the number of classes and teachers was barely satisfactory, and “strategy” effects may have been confounded with text variables. The “traditional” strategy tended to be a “traditional‐modified” one and may not have been as distinct from the “functional skills” strategies as might be desired. Technical flaws in the statistical analysis included failure to take account of repeated measures and questionable use of criterion‐type variables as covariates, but the main results regarding “strategy” and language laboratory system are valid. Sometimes the analysis was not deep enough, as where there was a failure to rule out variation in student characteristics in connection with correlations between class means on achievement tests and teacher FL proficiency. The study is interpreted as showing that functional skills strategies and materials fail to put enough emphasis on linguistic content. The results on correlations between teacher FL proficiency and class achievement are not persuasive enough to justify abandonment of FL proficiency tests in teacher selection and certification.

The Program in Foreign Language Education at Florida State University

The Undergraduate Program Undergraduates preparing for FL teaching in the public schools earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and Florida teacher certification upon the successful completion of a FL major in the Department of Modern Languages or the Department of Classics and required professional education courses. Current Florida certification requirements for teachers of FL include a minimum of 2 sem. hrs. in special methods of teaching the subject, plus student teaching in a public school. However, in view of the complex and rapidly changing nature of FL teaching today, the Florida State Program in Foreign Language Education requires undergraduate teacher candidates to complete a sequence of three methods courses totalling 13 quarter hrs., plus student teaching. In addition to the three required courses, two elective courses are offered to undergraduates who desire further work. All required undergraduate courses are taught by instructors with extensive backgrounds in FL study, professional preparation, and FL teaching in the public schools. Each course in the required sequence for undergraduates is intended to provide students with a body of fundamental theoretical concepts about the teaching and learning of foreign languages, together with the needed skills for the application of these concepts in classroom teaching. The first course considers such areas as: the history and development of FL teaching; the values and objectives of a language program; the nature of language and language learning; an introduction to linguistics; current pedagogical trends, with emphasis on techniques for developing the four basic language skills; audio-visual aids; and sources of professional materials and guidance. A limited amount of observation of live FL classes at the Florida State University Laboratory School is also provided. The second required course gives further consideration to the teaching of the basic skills but gives considerable attention to the teaching of introductory literature, to cultural aspects, and to the construction and use of FL tests. Observation of language classes at the University School is required, just as it is in the preceding course. In addition, students prepare and teach one or

A Common Concern: Future Teachers of German

Any profession worth its salt must give high priority to the education and preparation of those who are going to practice it in the future. Too often we encounter the attitude that the preparation of future teachers of German is the business of undergraduate professors and that elementary and high school teachers, as well as graduate professors, can do very little about it. University professors sometimes become so absorbed in their research and the preparation of Ph.D. candidates that the preparation of teachers for the various levels is only a minor concern for them. At many a university, the M.A. program is so rigidly geared to the next step-the Ph.D. in literature or linguistics--that it does not take into consideration the more practical needs of terminal M.A. candidates or teachers with the B.A. returning for further study. The urgent need for improvement is very obvious to all those who have been engaged in summer schools and institutes for teachers. Many of us have been shocked by the thought of how many basic mistakes are spread among thousands of children by inadequately prepared teachers. These shortcomings are frequently not the fault of the teachers but of the institutions certifying them. The institutions in turn will claim that the present fragmented language instruction is to blame. If the California development is an indication of a national trend, students are not only changing elementary and high schools frequently because parents move, but fewer and fewer future teachers of German will spend their four undergraduate years at the same college. Forced by financial or other circumstances they will attend several schools, sometimes even several junior colleges or four-year institutions, before they receive a B.A. Some of the student's language learning will have taken place in each one of these institutions. If each level does not fulfill its obligation, it is very difficult for the degree and credential granting college or university to give students all they should have before they become teachers. Much has to be done by representatives of all levels before we can be assured that only fully qualified teachers stand in front of our FL classes. Blaming others or the system is no solution to the problem at hand.

The Map for Pattern Practice

From Amos Comenius' Janua linguarum reserata (1631) to our age of gadgets, imaginative teachers of foreign languages have been trying to bridge the gap between verba et res, between the word and the thing or thought it represents. Yet in this continued search for effective catalysts in the language learning process, relatively little attention is being paid to the wall map. To be sure, there are some excellent contributions on the subject of FL class geography and on certain uses of the in first year German by Joseph K. Bihl1 and Rudolph F. Wagner,2 but neither includes suggestions for the utilization of the for pattern practice. The following is intended to give hints on this missing aspect. Next to the irreplaceable blackboard there is hardly another nontechnical aid as versatile, ever ready, and inexhaustible as a large wall map. Especially with pattern practice, it can provide countless things and situations,-or at least acceptable substitutes thereforfor of any conceivable structural item in the target language. From the simple utterances of the first week to the most difficult structures the can serve as a catalyst for the verba-res reunion whenever needed, or whenever a change from other drill routines might be desirable. A few things ought to be observed to make map drills a success: