Margo Milleret

The Validity of the Portuguese Speaking Test for Use in a Summer Study Abroad Program.

men study program. The study has three main ence expressed a significantly greaten degree of foci: a) to determine the validity of the ACTFLcomfort when using the language in a listening or based Portuguese Speaking Test as a placement speaking situation. tool for a short study abroad program; and b) to The findings of Carroll and Graman affirm assess gains in oral proficiency among particithe important role foreign study plays in depants in the University of Tennessees summer veloping language skills that are needed for study abroad program in Brazil; and c) to assess, advanced language courses. While efforts have where possible, other issues related to the initial been made to make the foreign language classstudy abroad experience, room more communicative and to improve students proficiency so as to better prepare Overview of Research students for advanced language classes, foreign study serves as an irreplaceable linguistic and John Carroll (1967) in his study of the lancultural experience. guage proficiency of foreign language majors in The traditional foreign study program detheir senior year, noted that most of the majors in signed for language learners includes study at a his sample had at least one foreign study expeniforeign institution in regular or specially deence. Even with this experience, most did not signed classes, placement with families, and surpass the level of 2+ on the FSI scale. This often additional scheduled travel. The cost of rating is equivalent to a scone of Advanced Plus these programs coupled with the time students on the ACTFL scale (Liskin-Gasparro, 1987). must commit to foreign study has led to a shorten, Graman (1987) noted the same phenomenon more intensive version of foreign study, the _________ summer study program. Unlike academic year 5Members are invited to send material to: Dr. Douglas K. programs, summer programs typically arrange Benson, Dept. of Modern Languages, Eisenhower Hall 104, for special classes for students at foreign instituKansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS 66506. Maximum tions that would normally be on vacation. Sumlength is 15 double-spaced pages, in either 1985 MLA or men study is attractive to faculty and students linguistics format. Please send a typed original and acopy alikebecauseitnequineslesstimeandlessmoney. for each paper submitted, and include a self-addressed envelope and loose stamps to cover return mailing of the However, summer study programs have been manuscript, criticized for their brevity, intensity, and lack of

Nota Bene: Caveat Scriptor

In a recent newsletter (Summer, 1985) and a subsequent special announcement to its members, the Modern Language Association has endorsed for the first time, and is currently marketing, an integrated word processing and data base management package for use on microcomputers (Nota Bene, Dragonfly Software Company,

Assessing the Gain in Oral Proficiency from Summer Foreign Study.

495 list price, special price of

Cooperative Learning in the Portuguese‐for‐Spanish‐Speakers Classroom

396 to MLA members). Writing for PC Magazine (July 23, 1985, p. 64), Stephen Manes takes note of that unusual endorsement and underlines the Associations intention to market directly to its own members and those of related organizations. We found the MLA announcement to be of immediate interest, since we are in the initial stages of an extensive annotated bibliography on the avant-garde in Latin America. We have available for project use an IBM PC-XT (20 MB hard disk capacity), but up to this point our searches for adequate software support have been largely unsuccessful. Most packages have been designed for business use and are not adaptable to our needs. The excellent Finder/Search Companion retrieval system, designed by Aaron/Smith Associates for library use, was promising as an integrated system, but the entire package would have cost nearly

Portuguese Study in Higher Education in the United States

2,000. In that context Nota Bene appeared to offer integration of various important functions, multilingual word processing, and the generation of cross-listings and indexes at a price which was acceptable. On the strength of those announced capabilities we ordered Nota Bene, have installed it on our system, and have begun to make use of it in our project. We should note that we are not programmers nor computer scientists, but we do have several years combined experience in word processing and data base management on both microcomputers and mainframe systems. It is precisely our intention to use Nota Bene extensively that motivates our comments in the pages of Hispania. This review is a preliminary assessment of the package as we have installed it and have been able to use it up to this point. After we have had an opportunity to test Nota Benes capabilities with materials from our own project, we will provide a more complete evaluation. At this moment, however, we will describe the package for potential AATSP users, omment on the installation process, and provide an evaluation of the support and training materials.