Examines British national examination results and related trends in the declining level of performance in modern languages relative to other subjects, suggesting that this trend to underperform in modern languages may be due in part to the relative difficulty of the examinations. The paper proposes strategies to help teachers become more rigorous…

Examined the foreign-language-learning abilities of 14- to 15-year olds in Britain, Germany, and Greece. Comparison of results from tests of students' foreign vocabulary knowledge indicated that British students had only one-third to one-half of the foreign language vocabulary knowledge of Greek and German students. They also spent less time…

Presents an analysis of recorded weekly discussions between British student language teachers and their school-based mentors. Results found that, despite individual preferences and interpretations, all mentors supported principles related to positive classroom management, building relationships with pupils, maximum use of the target language, and…

Mailed surveys investigated modern foreign language inservice provisions offered by English and Welsh local education authorities since the introduction of the national curriculum, comparing this analysis with expressed inservice needs of secondary school department heads. Teachers' choice of inservice course content was primarily in response to…

Proposes to strengthen the theoretical basis supporting hypermedia computer-assisted language-learning (CALL) authoring by initiating a requirements analysis based on contextualized conceptual and mental models, presenting the theoretical dimension of knowledge representations within the authoring process and applying the theoretical approach to…

Discusses the Military Language Tutor (MILT), a language-tutor authoring system, examining the development of a proof of principal version of MILT's two-dimensional Arabic microworld, which uses speech input to control an animated agent in solving an authored problem and describing an evaluation of the speech-driven microworld at Fort Campbell,…

Describes a self-study legal-language program for university students studying German that included computer-assisted language learning and satellite television. The program was tested for two years at a European university. This paper examines the program's rationale, pedagogical objectives, and theoretical considerations within the context of…

Information about how learners navigate in a multimedia learning environment is necessary for evaluation. Verbalization of learners using the program Vi-Conte was used to create navigational patterns. Researchers found the type of navigation often related to specific learner variables. (Author/SM)

Compares results from surveys conducted in 1987 and 1998 on how computer-assisted language learning (CALL) was being used in Canadian universities. Results provided information on what types of hardware and software were being used, languages taught using CALL, the impact of CALL on various courses, and teachers' and students' attitudes about…

Delineates the process of how a Web site called the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) was created to meet the language learning needs of a group of learners at a graduate school in Japan. The focus of discussion is on factors that influenced the design and evolution of the VLE site. (Author/VWL)

Examines the emerging form of text on the World Wide Web and how it is influencing reading, in particular reading by non-native readers of English. Focus is on the visual representation of text structure. (Author/VWL)

Looks at an innovative organizational tool for syllabus design of English-as-a-Foreign-Language, computer-assisted language learning writing classes that is borrowed from the interdisciplinary field of information architecture. The tool around which this syllabus design is structured is the Location-Alphabet-Time-Category-Hierarchy (LATCH), to…

Surveys initial student perceptions of a university-level computer-assisted language learning (CALL) course. Over 100 Japanese first-year students were questioned about the influence of CALL in their language classroom and on language education in Japan in general. Their views are presented and analyzed in the context of teaching and learning…

Describes an approach to needs and syllabus design that is illustrated by way of pedagogic elements comprising the learning environment of second-year Japanese college students, doctors in training, who read, discuss, and write in response to medical case studies accessed and mediated through the Internet. (Author/VWL)

Explains how the writing process approach utilizing hypermedia software can help non-native speakers develop an awareness of English-language composition structures. Discusses the pedagogical basis for the writing process, as well as the benefits computers and specialized software can bring to the language classroom. (Author/VWL)