The Use of Situation Tests as Measures of Communicative Ability

1988 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Raffaldini
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
Communicative Skills ◽  
American University ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Oral Proficiency Interview ◽  
Communicative Ability ◽  
Alternative Measures

In recent years, universities and secondary schools have increasingly used the ACTFL/ETS Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) to measure the ability of learners to communicate in a foreign language. This article discusses the OPI in relation to current models of communicative skills and argues that the OPI fails to measure important aspects of communicative ability. Two Situation Tests, one written and one oral, are proposed as alternative measures of communicative ability and are described in detail. The two tests as well as the OPI were administered to American university students who had spent a year abroad studying French. This article reports on the changes in the communicative skills of the students during the year after their return to the United States. Statistical comparisons between the OPI and the Situation Tests are presented showing that the OPI is primarily a measure of grammatical competence. The article concludes with the claim that Situation Tests can provide a more complete assessment of communicative ability than the OPI.

Rethinking Canada: Canadian Studies and Study Abroad

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Beach ◽  
George Sherman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
University Admissions ◽  
American University ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Canadian Education ◽  
Studying Abroad ◽  
Canadian Studies ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
English Speaking

Americans have been studying “abroad” in Canada on a freelance basis for generations, and for many different reasons. Certain regions of Canada, for example, provide excellent, close-to-home opportunities to study French and/or to study in a French-speaking environment. Opportunities are available coast-to-coast for “foreign studies” in an English-speaking environment. Additionally, many students are interested in visiting cities or areas from which immediate family members or relatives emigrated to the United States.  Traditionally, many more Canadians have sought higher education degrees in the United States than the reverse. However, this is about to change. Tearing a creative page out of the American university admissions handbook, Canadian universities are aggressively recruiting in the United States with the up-front argument that a Canadian education is less expensive, and a more subtle argument that it is perhaps better.

Of frameworks and the goals of collegiate foreign language education: critical reflections

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Byrnes,
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Educational Goals ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Multiple Literacies ◽  
Performance Development ◽  
Viable Approach

AbstractThe paper suggests that among reasons for the difficulties collegiate foreign language (FL) programs in the United States (and most likely elsewhere) encounter in assuring that their students attain the kind of upper-level multiple literacies necessary for engaging in sophisticated work with FL oral and written texts may be the fact that prevailing frameworks for capturing FL performance, development, and assessment are insufficient for envisioning such textually oriented learning goals. The result of this mismatch between dominant frameworks, typically associated with communicative language teaching, and the goals of literary cultural studies programs as humanities programs is that collegiate FL departments and their faculty members face serious obstacles in their efforts to create the kind of coherent, comprehensive, and principled curricula that would be necessary for overcoming what are already extraordinary challenges in an educational environment that provides little support for long-term, sustained efforts at language development toward advanced multiple literacies. The paper traces these links by examining three such frameworks in the United States: the Proficiency framework of the 1980s, based on the ACTFL oral proficiency interview, the Standards framework of the 1990s, part of a more general standards movement in U.S. education, and the most recent document, by the Modern Language Association (MLA), which focuses on the need for new curricular structures in collegiate FL education. Specifically, it provides an overview of the U.S. educational landscape with an eye toward the considerable influence such frameworks can have in the absence of a comprehensive language education policy; lays out key characteristics that would be necessary for a viable approach to collegiate FL education; probes the complex effects the three frameworks have had in collegiate FL programs; and explores how one department sought to counter-act their detrimental influence in order to affirm and realize a humanistically oriented approach to FL education. The paper concludes with overall observations about the increasing power of frameworks to set educational goals and ways to counteract their potentially unwelcome consequences.

scholarly journals International WomenÕs Day

1970 ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Lebanese American University
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
American University ◽  
The Public ◽  
Lebanese American University

On March 7, 2002 the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University along with the Public Affairs Section, Embassy of the United States of America hosted Dr. Miriam Cooke renowned writer and scholar. In her talk, Cooke shared with the audience her experience in writing on controversialsubjects pertaining to women’s issues.

scholarly journals English-Polish contrastive grammar at Polish universities

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 126-138
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
World War ◽  
English Departments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics ◽  
Second World

Although contrastive studies do not enjoy great prestige among linguists, they have a very long tradition dating back to ca. 1000 A.D. when Ælfric wrote his Grammatica, a grammar of Latin and English. Even then he must have been aware of the fact that the knowledge of one language may be helpful in the process of learning another language (Krzeszowski 1990). Similarly, it seems that throughout the history of mankind teachers of a foreign language must have realized that a native and foreign tongue can be contrasted. However, contrastive linguistics only came into being as a science at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The first works were almost purely theoretical, and it is worth emphasizing that among the first scholars working in the field was Baudouin de Courtenay, a Polish linguist, who published his contrastive grammar of Polish, Russian and Old Church Slavonic in 1912. The outbreak of the Second World War was a milestone in the development of applied contrastive studies since a need to teach foreign languages in the United States arose as a result. The 1960’s is considered a further step in the development of contrastive grammar since a number of projects were initiated both in Europe and in the U.S.A. (Willim, Mańczak-Wohlfeld 1997), which resulted in the introduction of courses in English-Polish contrastive grammar at Polish universities. The aim of the present paper is to characterize and evaluate the courses offered in the English departments of selected Polish universities and to suggest an “ideal” syllabus.

scholarly journals Cuando un príncipe besa a una rana: ¡Sorpresa! Una propuesta didáctica desde la homosexualidad

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Jódar Sánchez ◽  
Rocío Domene Benito
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Role Play ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teaching Material ◽  
Social Convention ◽  
Future Tense ◽  
Consolidation Phase ◽  
Intellectual Challenge

Resumen: En esta propuesta didáctica, utilizamos el álbum ilustrado como herramienta para la enseñanza de contenido lingüístico, así como valores sociales y cívicos a un grupo de estudiantes de ELE de nivel A2. Utilizamos el álbum ilustrado El día de la rana roja que narra la historia de dos príncipes que se enamoran y adoptan a una niña huérfana. Estructuramos nuestra propuesta en cuatro fases (introducción, comprensión, consolidación, resignificación), de las cuáles las dos últimas son las dos que más desarrollamos. Planteamos una entrevista a la rana del cuento, un teatro con marionetas, y el dibujo del mapa del reino como actividades de introducción. En la fase de comprensión se sugieren actividades de léxico y gramática sencillas, tratando, por ejemplo, los tiempos de presente y futuro. En la fase de consolidación, el profesor tiene la opción de realizar el taller del adivinador de sueños o la puesta en escena de declaraciones de amor entre animales. Finalmente, para la fase de resignificación, se cuestiona por qué el rey y la reina cambian el vestido por unos pantalones al averiguar que su hijo se casará con un chico.Palabras clave: Homosexualidad, español como lengua extranjera, álbum ilustrado, El día de la rana roja. Abstract: This teaching material is based on the picture book El día de la rana roja, the story of a prince who marries another man and together adopt an orphan child. It is targeted to students of Spanish as a foreign language of any country, including the United States, with an A2 level. Picture books are useful tools to teach, not only language and grammar, but also civility and good manners in society. The proposal is divided into four phases (introduction, comprehension, consolidation, and intellectual challenge), the latter of which are explained in detail. For the introduction phase, we propose interviewing the frog in the story, having a puppet role play narrating the story, and drawing a map of the kingdom. For the comprehesion phase, we suggest grammar (present and future tense) activities and lexicon ones. For the consolidation phase, the teacher can choose between doing an activity with a mind reader or with declarations of love among animals. Finally, for the phase where their ideas are challenged, the focus is on the topic of clothing. The fact that the king and queen change the dress of the princess for a pair of trousers for the prince is challenged to show students that clothing is a mere social convention based on sex that can be questioned.Keywords: Homosexuality, Spanish as a foreign language, picture book, El día de la rana roja.

scholarly journals Teaching culture in the foreign language classroom: Implications for language assistants in bilingual schools

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 194-199
Author(s):  
Jesus Garcia Laborda ◽  
Iulia Vecan ◽  
Angela Sauciuc
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teaching Culture ◽  
Important Resource ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Foreign Language Classroom ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Bilingual Schools

Language assistants have become an important resource for teachers in bilingual schools in Spain, especially in the Madrid region. Most language assistants come from English-speaking countries, especially from the United States. In their role as language assistants, they are expected to bring and share their knowledge about the cultural aspects and content subjects and, at the same time, they need to share their beliefs and perspectives towards Spain and Spanish schools. Nevertheless, sometimes there is controversy around this topic, as there are obvious differences and similarities between both cultures; one of them being the misconception regarding the type of culture they need to teach students.

José Carlos Rodrigues and O Novo Mundo, 1870-1879

1967 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. A. Boehrer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
First Republic ◽  
Social Scene ◽  
Original Owner ◽  
The City

In 1872, it was estimated that there were 378 foreign language journals published in the United States. Of these, only one was in the Portuguese language. O Novo Mundo, published in New York from 1870 to 1879, was singular among the foreign language press publications in that it was designed not for an immigrant audience but rather for readers in another country. Its purpose was to interpret the United States primarily to Brazilians and secondarily to other Latin Americans. Faithful until its last issue to this end, it also commented on the Brazilian political and social scene.José Carlos Rodrigues, O Novo Mundo's original owner and only editor, was a remarkable Brazilian in an era when the Empire and the First Republic produced a galaxy of extraordinary public figures. Born in the city of Cantagallo, province of Rio de Janeiro, on July 19, 1844, be was the son of fazendeiros, and attended the Colégio Dom Pedro II in Rio de Janeiro.

FRAMING FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: THE CASE OF GERMAN

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 151-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Kramsch ◽  
Tes Howell ◽  
Chantelle Warner ◽  
Chad Wellmon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Language Education
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