variables (Brown, Busch, Ely, Schuman, Scovel), suggesting that they merit serious attention of professionals. Ely (15), for example, has conducted research on students' situation-specific constructs: class discomfort, class risktaking, and class sociability in first-year Spanish. The results of study reveal that risktaking is a positive predictor of students' voluntary classroom participation. Ely concludes (14: p. 23): Apparently, before some students can be expected to take linguistic risks, they must be made to feel more psychologically comfortable and safe in their learning environment. In past ten or fifteen years, psychologists and professionals have been studying the right concatenation of psychological factors (Schumann) in order to produce more successful second learners. Curran saw need for understanding learners not only cognitively by affectively as well. The Counseling-Learning (CL) approach he devised (11, 12) recognizes need for ego permeability achieved through reduced inhibitions. Adopting mode of a counseling situation, especially client-centered therapy, for instruction, Curran referred to student as a language client and to teacher who is equipped with linguistic resources and a counselor's empathic attitude as a language counselor. To break down inhibitions, Curran created a learning situation characterized by warmth and acceptance. The role of counselor is to communicate empathy for learner's threatened state, . . to aid him linguistically, and then slowly to enable him to arrive at his own increasingly independent adequacy (11: p. 82). Curran's thinking and practice have been receiving enthusiastic reviews and reactions from professionals, but not without reservations (Brown, Taylor, 31). One of most frequently voiced concerns is how to put approach to use in regular classrooms. Few empirical studies have been conducted to prove applicability of CL in regular classrooms. LaFarga conducted an experiment in which members of a group speaking four foreign languages (French, German, Spanish, and Italian) studied under group counseling conditions. After a nine-month period, students in experimental group had acquired almost as much competence in all four languages as control group did in one language. The experiment also showed evidence of increased positive self-regard among experimental group members. Gallagher evaluated CL compared to a traditional approach in terms of achievement, personal orientation, and change in attitude toward second-language learning. A unique aspect of this study was that experimental group studied both Spanish and German while control group studied either one or other. The analysis and data indicated no significant difference in gain for either experimental or control group with regard to reading comprehension and knowledge of grammar. For listening and speaking skills, however, experimental group in each target scored significantly higher than control group. On affective scores, experiThe Modern Language Journal, 73, ii (1989) 0026-7902/89/0002/169 $1.50/0 ?1989 The Modern Language Journal