Designing programs for foreign languages
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4872051 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gail Guntermann (Arizona State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 276-281 |
| Publication date | 1987-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory Into Practice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-5841 • E-ISSN: 1527-2532 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00405848709543286 |
| OpenAlex | W2144421096 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Program design in foreign languages has recently become a critical issue for the profession as a whole. Largely as a result of outside influences, including public policy pressures and an explosion of information from diverse fields of investigation, basic questions have emerged as to goals, content, teaching and learning strategies, and evaluation procedures. Until recently, language teachers operated within a relatively well-defined set of principles and conventions. From colonial times, only the best students studied languages, and teachers were equipped to follow the practices of intensive grammar analysis laid down by their predecessors. Even with the emergence of the scientific audio-lingual method in the 1950s and 1960s, the curriculum was handed down from above by a cadre of experts who designed the textbooks and teacher training manuals detailing the procedures to follow in teaching lockstep dialogues and pattern drills.1 Unfortunately, this movement failed to fulfill its promise that students would learn to speak to native speakers like native speakers. During the 1960s and 1970s language enrollments dropped to an all-time low (to 15 percent by 1980)2 and researchers and professional leaders groped for the answers to questions of how to attract and retain students and meet their needs. With a new demand for demonstrable results, and with the entire program no longer prepackaged for teachers, the need for planning became evident. A
Foreign language · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Programming language · Computer Science · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Psychology · Second Language Learning and Teaching
| Highly cited | No |
|---|