LINGUIST List 12.453

Mon Feb 19 2001

Qs: French Assessment Test, Aids/American Eng

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Sharon L. Shelly, language placement tests
2. Ulrike Kaunzner, pronunciation exercises US

A former graduate student of mine, who is now a missionary and 
high-school teacher in Haiti, has sent me the following query. I'm 
at a loss for a good answer. I figure that the kinds of standardized 
placement exams that I'm familiar with will not be of much use to 
her, for a couple of reasons: (a) they usually assume higher-level 
literacy skills; and (b) they generally require quite a bit of 
technical support (AV and/or digital) that will probably be hard to 
come by in this setting.

If anyone has any good advice or recommendations, I'd be happy to 
forward them to her. Many thanks!

SLS

>
>The school here is attempting to revamp its French program. We have 
>a pretty unusual situation. A high percentage of our students speak 
>French at home, but don't read and write it because they have been 
>in an English school. They also speak Creole, which confuses things 
>further. Another group of students has had virtually no exposure to 
>French - they speak English at home and are not around French and 
>Creole much because of living on an American compound or some 
>similar arrangement. Then we have a lot of kids who fall somewhere 
>in the middle - maybe they understand some Creole, but haven't had 
>exposure to French, or they speak Arabic at home but have a little 
>French knowledge from elsewhere. Right now, kids from all these 
>categories get put in the same class in high school French. You can 
>imagine that it is quite a challenge to teach such a group!
>
>The school is looking for some kind of placement test to help sort 
>the students into the proper classes. Does such a thing exist for 
>high school French? Or is there a college one the school could 
>purchase and modify for their purposes?
>
>Thanks! 
>

- 
Sharon L. Shelly
Associate Professor of French
College of Wooster
Wooster, OH 44691
Telephone: (330) 263-2562
Fax: (330) 263-2693
E-mail: sshellyacs.wooster.edu

Most of the English pronunciation exercises (manual with CD or tapes) 
which I can find in our European bookstores are for British English. I 
desperately need material for groups who have to be sensitized for 
American Business English; listening comprehension and pronunciation 
plays a major role in our training. Can you give me indications about:
1. pronunciation exercises on CD and/or tape (I mainly need repetition 
exercises because of a certain methodological approach)
2. texts, speeches, dialogues, business talk, etc. on CD/tape
Thank you very much!

U. Kaunzner, University of Bologna