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Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ROUND TABLE ON LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS Language Teaching, Testing, and Technology: Lessons from the Past with a View Toward the Future James E. Alatis, Editor GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ROUND TABLE ON LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS 1989 Language Teaching, Testing, and Technology: Lessons from the Past with a View Toward the Future James E. Alatis, Editor Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. Bibliographic notice Since this series has been variously and confusingly cited as: Georgetown University Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, Reports of the Annual Round Table Meetings on Linguistics and Language Study, etc., beginning with the 1973 volume the title of the series was changed. The new title of the series includes the year of a Round Table and omits both the monograph number and the meeting number, thus: Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1988, with the regular abbreviation GURT '89. Full bibliographic references should show the form: Lado, Robert. 1989. Acquisition vs. learning in reading pronunciation by adult EFL students. In: Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 000-000. Copyright ©1989 by Georgetown University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalog Number: 58-31607 ISBN 0-87840-124-5 ISSN 0196-7207 To WILGA M. RIVERS TEACHER, AUTHOR, SCHOLAR IN RECOGNITION OF HER SELFLESS DEDICATION TO THE TEACHING OF LANGUAGES Contents The Georgetown University Bicentennial and the fortieth Round Table on Languages and Linguistics James E. Alatis, Dean, Georgetown University School of Languages and Linguistics and Chair, Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989 Welcoming remarks 1 Charles A. Ferguson, Stanford University On behalf of the Center for Applied Linguistics 5 Charles L. Currie, S.J., Director, Bicentennial Celebration On behalf of the Georgetown University Bicentennial 7 James E. Alatis, Chair, Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989 Presentation of Bicentennial Medals to Henry and Renée Kahane 9 Sir John Lyons, LittD., F.BA., Cambridge University The last forty years: Real progress or not? 13 Language teaching G. Richard Tucker, and JoAnn Crandall, Center for Applied Linguistics The integration of language and content instruction for language minority and language majority students 39 Veronica Lawson, London, England Practice makes less imperfect: Users' needs and their influence on machine translation development 51 Robert Lado, Dean emeritus, Georgetown University Acquisition vs. learning in reading pronunciation by adult EFL students 59 Claire J. Kramsch, Massachussetts Institute of Technology Discourse and text: A narrative view of the foreign language lesson 69 Charles A. Ferguson, Stanford University Language teaching and theories of language 81 vi / Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989 Muriel Vasconcellos, Pan American Health Organization Cohesion and coherence in the presentation of machine translation products 89 Richard Lutz, Georgetown University Second language acquisition: Do we really want a unified theory? 106 Karin C. Ryding, Georgetown University Less commonly taught languages: The current situation 114 Peter Strevens, Wolf son College, Cambridge and the University of Illinois Towards a rationale for language teaching technology 122 Ali Hajjaj and Balkees Al-Najjar, Kuwait University ESL program evaluation: Realities and perspectives 133 Frederick Bosco and Anna De Meo, Georgetown Univeristy Discourse frames and the cycle of instruction 142 Ross Steele, University of Sydney Teaching language and culture: Old problems, new approaches 153 Henry Kahane, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The role of language in the immigrant's Ufe 163 Maria Ibba, Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore New trends in foreign language teaching: Teaching English in the Italian medical school curriculum 167 Irene Thompson, George Washington University Lexical search strategies in L2: A developmental analysis 177 Wilga M. Rivers, Harvard University Interaction and communication in the language class in an age of technology 186 Language testing Ray T. Clifford, Defense Language Institute Technological, methodological, and assessment challenges: Can the foreign language teacher survive? 198 John L. D. Clark, Defense Language Institute Multipurpose language tests: Is a conceptual and operational synthesis possible? 206 Contents / vii Peter H. Lowenberg, Georgetown University Testing English as a world language: Issues in assessing normative proficiency 216 Richard T. Thompson, Center for Applied Linguistics Oral proficiency in the less commonly taught languages: What do we know about it? 228 J. Michael O'Malley, Evaluation Assistance Center, Georgetown University Language proficiency testing with limited English-proficient students 235 Thea C. Bruhn, Foreign Service Institute 'Passages': Life, the universe, and language proficiency assessment 245 Rebecca M. Valette, Boston College Language testing in the secondary schools: Past experience and new directions 255 Heidi Byrnes, Georgetown University Who is in charge in the learner-curriculum-testing connection? 265 Language technology Sue K. Otto, University of Iowa Assessment, articulation, accountability: New roles for the language lab 276 Nina Garrett, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The synergism of technology and theory in classroom second language acquisition research 288 Michael Zarechnak, Georgetown University Semantic subclasses of temporal nouns 295 Protase E. Woodford, Educational Testing Service From wire recorder to satellite dish: The impact of technology on language teaching 304 June K. Phillips, Tennessee Foreign Language Institute Challenging teachers and harnessing technology 312 Frank Otto, Brigham Young University Building on the past: New directions in CAI/IL 320 Judith G. Frommer, Harvard University Language learning, cultural understanding, and the computer 332 viii / Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989 Sergei Nirenberg, Carnegie-Mellon University New developments in knowledge-based machine translation 344 Ricardo M. Paiva, Georgetown University Culture in the language class: Videos to bridge the gap 358 Margaret King, Université de Généve Using unification grammars for analysis and synthesis 364 Reinhold Freudenstein, Philipps - Universitat, Marburg Testing and technology in Germany revisited: What is left? What can be hoped for? 372 Makato Nagao, Kyoto University New directions of machine translation 378 Winfred P. Lehmann, University of Texas at Austin Machine translation: Achievements, problems, promise 385 Stephen Krashen, University of Southern California Language teaching technology: A low-tech view 393 G. Richard Tucker, Center for Applied Linguistics Michael Zarechnak, Georgetown University Appendix: Three historical notes 408 Welcoming remarks James E. Alatis Dean, Georgetown University School of Languages and Linguistics Chair, Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My tasks this evening are simple and happy: to welcome, to thank, to announce, and to introduce. 1. Welcome to Georgetown University, to our School of Languages and Linguistics, and to the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1989. We are delighted that since 1950 we have been able to host scholars and teachers interested and committed to languages and linguistics. Our colleagues in this year's Round Table 1989 will discuss Language Teaching, Testing and Technology: Lessons from the Past with a View to the Future. A word of welcome also to those who participated in the Round Table pre-sessions. These pre-session meetings allow us all to include a wide range of quite specialized topics which a more general conference could hardly hope to address. We are delighted to provide a setting for such groups, some of which, such as the Interagency Roundtable, have met here for many years. We are grateful to the organizers of these pre-sessions and congratulate them. 2. Now let me thank all of you who have come: speakers, scholars, teachers, students. This is our fortieth annual Round Table meeting. We are grateful that you could join us for this anniversary and we welcome your participation. I would like to express my special gratitude to Mrs. Carol Kreidler, the conference coordinator, who helped identify and invite to our meeting so many of the finest scholars concerned with various aspects of language study. Unfortunately she is not here this evening; for as a member of the Executive Board of TESOL, she was committed to attend their annual conference in San Antonio, and I insisted that she honor that commitment. But her assistant coordinator, Mrs. Jackie M. Tanner, Director of Language Learning Technology in the School of Languages and Linguistics, is here together with Round Table assistants Susan Huss and Laura Klos Sokol, Fellows in the Linguistics Department. Let me express to them our joint gratitude for the assistance I know they will provide during the next few days. 3. My first announcement is that this year's Round Table meeting again coincides with the National Foreign Language Week proclaimed by President George Bush. I am sure you share with me gratitude for his gracious words 2 / Georgetown University Round Table on Languages
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