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Birckbichler, Diane N.; Omaggio, Alice C,Diagnosing and Responding to Individual LeaNeeds. CAL-ERIC/CLL Series cn Languages andLinguistics, No. 60.ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics,Arlington, Va.National Inst_ of Education (DREW) , Washington,D.C.Nov 7812p.; This article is a revised version of a paperpresented at Central States Conference on theTeaching of Foreign Languages (Columbus, Ohio, April1977) ; Parts may be marginally legible due t2 smallprintModern Language Journal; v62 n7 036-345 14z,v 1978

.ME-$0.83 HC -$1.67 Plus Postage.Cognitive Processes; Cognitive Style; *DiagnosticTeaching; Educational riagrosis; Elementary SecondaryEducation; Grammar; Higher EducationiLanguageAbility; Language Instruction; *Learning ActivitieS;*Learning Characteristics; *Learning Difficulties;Listening Comprehension; Reading; *Remedial.,Instruction; *Second Language Learning;'StudentNeeds; Verbal Communication; Vocibulary revelopment;WritingInformation Analysis Prodnct..

Various sources of learner problems-are identifiedand specific remedial activities are suggested for difficulties inspeaking, listening;' reading, writing, vocabulary acquisition, andgrammar tasks. Some of the more common sources Of learnerdifficulties that are discussed are poor memory, lack offlexibility, too impulsive, to reflective, field dependent, broadcategorizer, narrow.oategorizer, -and icy tolerance of ambiguity.Remedial activities designed to address these

ofare discussed.

Twenty activities emphasize the develocmentof analytical skills,nine activities concentrate on the synthesis of information, 17activities concentrate on increasing flexibility with the language,and three activities address making inferences. These remedialactivities are easily adaptable to individual tutorial sessions,small-group work, or large-group instruction. In the latter case,teachers may choose to identify particular protlems'and incorporateAppropriate activities into daily lesson plans. A grid is presentedindicating appropriate remedial activities for each learner problem(e.4., poor memory) and each learning task (e.g., listenitg)- (sio-

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DIAGNOSING AND RESPONDING TO INDIVIDUAL

LEARNER NEEDS

Diane W. Birckbichier

Alice C. Omaggio

CAL-ERIC CLL Series on Languages and Linguistics

Number -60

ERIC e*ringhouse on Languages and LinguisticsCenter for Applied Linguistics

1611 North Kent Street .

Arlington, Virginia 22209

NovembSr 1978

-PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) ANDUSERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM.'

. DSPARTMENTOF HEALTH.EDUCATION & WELFARENATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO=DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROMTHE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN-ATING IT- POINTS OF _VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE-SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OFEDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

Diagnosing and Responding toIndividual Learner Needs

DIANE W. BiRCKHICIILER. University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana ANDALICE C. °MAGGIO, ERIC Clearinghouse On Languages and Linguistics

This publication is the sixtieth in the CAL*ERIC CLL Series on Languages and Linguistics, Thematerial in this publication was prepared pursuant toa contract wnh the National Institute of Education.U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.Contractors undertaking such projects under govern-ment sponsorship are encouraged to express freelytheir judwment in professional and technical matters.Prior to publication, the manuscript was submitted tothe Center for Applied Linguistics, and to the Na-tional Federation of Modern Language TeachersAssociations for critical review and determination ofprofessional competence. This publication has metsuch standards. Points of view or opinions, however,do not necessarily represent the official view oropinions of the Center for Applied Linguistics, theNational Federation of Modern Language TeachersAssociations, or the National 1 nstitu teof Education.

MERICAN educators have become in-creasingly aware of the importance

of developing a curriculum that responds to theinterests and needs of individual students. Theforeign language profession shares this concern.Recent articles, both theoretical and practical,

have focused on various aspects of individual dif-ferences. Students come to the second-languageclassroom with different interests and prefer-ences, different first-language skills, and dif-ferent learning styles in both the affective andcognitive domains. We know that students adopttheir own learning strategies as they perform sec-ond-language tasks, We also know that a par-ticular strategy may be ineffective or inefficient,and, as a result, students experience difficultiesin various skill areas.

There are many ways in which teachers can re-spond to the learning needs of individual stu-dents. First, one can identify a general cognitivestyle or strategy (such as auditory or visual orien-tation) that a person prefers and design activitiesin all skill areas to accommodate that style.Secondly, the structure of the learning environ-

'This article is a revised version of a paper originally pre-sented at the 1977 Central States Conference on the Teach-ing of Foreign Languages. The materials described in, thearticle were developed at The Ohio State University as a partof the individualisation of foreign language instructionproject, sponsored by a grant from the National Endowmentfor the Humanities,

I)lIESPONi)I; '41 R NER .17

ment can be altered to accommodate the learn-ing preferences or styles of the student. (Forexample. some students function better in astructured environment, while others prefer anunstructured classroom setting.) Another way toalter the learning environment is to provideopportunities for either small-group or large.group instruction, depending on the student'spreference.

The purpose of this article is to present a thirdapproach an approach that seeks to identifyand label the particular learning problem ratherthan the individual learner. A student mayemploy different learning strategies as taskdemands change. For example. one student mayIle reflective in a writing task but impulsive in alistening exercise. Another student may lackflexibility and be unable to paraphrase in speak-ing but may approach a reading task with agreat deal of flexibility. Still another learner maytolerate ambiguity while reading, but is easilyfrustrated' by unknown elements -in a listeningtask.

In this article, various sources of learner prob-lems are identified and specific remedial activities are suggested for difficulties in speaking,listening, reading. writing, vocabulary acquisi-tion, and grammar tasks. Some of the more com-mon sources of learner difficulties are discussedbelow:'

Some Learner Problems

Poor Memory

Students cannot remember information longenough to integrate the different elements of aspoken or written message into a meaningful andcoherent whole. In addition, they may have dif-

DIAN W. BIgCMIICIILER (Ph.D.. The Ohio State Univer-sity) has taught at the high school and university levels.supervised teaching assistants, taught methodology courses,and developed- an individualized instruction program inFrench. She is co= author of Incitation: 4 Basic French Text(Holt). and has contributed the .4 CM Foreign Lan.gunge Education Series.

ALICE C. OstAccio (Ph.D.. The Ohio State University) isAssociate Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Liang-uagesand Linguistics. She has taught at the high school and uni-versity levels and directed an NEli summer institute courseon communicative competence at Purdue Univeriity. Herwork has appeared in the 4 CTFL Foreign Language Educa-tion Series and other professional publications.

ficulty recalling specific vocauL I v verb endings, noun markers, and the like.

Lack of Flexibility

Students hesitate, stumble over words, and arenot able to find alternative means of expression.The performance of such students is often char-acterized by pauses in speech and by skimpy orbrief compositions. They may be what Guilford(1967) calls convergent thinkers, i.e., they tendto remain within the strict limitations of a task orto focus on the production of a ingle rightanswer.

Too ImpuLsive

Impulsive students are generally characterizedby a tendency to jump into a task without con-sidering its various components. They are notattentive to detail, and do not know how to orare not willing to take the time to identify thedistinctive or salient features of a learning task orsegment of language. They may lack organiza-tional skills. Impulsive students are not overlyconcerned rith the adequacy or accuracy of a re-sponse and, will often give the first answer theythink of.

Too Reflective1

Reflective learners are too attentive to detailand discriminate so finely that they lose thegeneral tIVead of a listening or reading passage.They are oiverly concerned with the adequacy oraccuracy f their responses and may give tooLI)

much tho ght to alternatives before coming to adecision.

Field Dependent

Students lack focusing skills, are too easily dis-tracted by detail, and cannot distinguish rele-I;vant from irrelevant information. Field de-pendent students are easily frustrated by ex-traneous information and therefore are likely tomake a task more complex than necessary.

Broad Categorizer

Broad cate 'gorizers have difficulty in makingpertinent distinctions between categories. Theytend to overgeneralize, making rules about thesecond language that subsume many examples.

'Good summaries of learner problems appear in Hosen eld(1975) and Speery (1972).

111.I.Nr II lit leaf/Iii OAL 'GIO

These learners tend to create a rule for everyexample, a strategy that dettacis from theiraniltt to make necessary and acrurate generali-zations. Consequently, they are often lost in de-tail and have difficulty in forming concepts.

Low Tolerance of Antbigual

'Fliese students give up quickly when the taskpresents difficulty, doubt. or ambiguity. Theycannot hypothesize well and do not like to takerisks.

Suggested Activities

Remedial activities designed to address theseproblems in specific skill areas appear in the gridon page 344, The-se remedial activities are easilyadaptable to individual tutorial sessions, small-group work, or large-group instruction. In thelatter case, teachers may choose to identify par-ticular problems and incorporate appropriateactivities into daily lesson plans. Numbers in thegrid refer to specific activities within a given skillarea (For example, activities 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 14,19, 21, 22, and 23 can be used to help studentswho are field dependent when doing listeningtasks.) Activities have also been classified accord-ing to the processing demands of the task and arelisted below within these classifications. Forexample, activities 1-20 emphasize the develop-ment of analytical skills; tasks 21-29 concentrateon the synthesis of information, etc.I. ANALYSIS: Activities that require the stu-

dent to analyze samples of the foreign lan-guage phonemes. morphemes, vocabularyitems, etc. Analytical tasks might also in-clude judging the meaningfulness of a givensample of the foreign language.A. CLUE SEARCHING: Tasks requiring

the student to locate certain featuresof the language and identify themproperly.I. Skimming Tasks.- Such tasks in-

volve the rapid reading of aparagraph to obtain informationpertaining to a specific idea. Stu-dents are given a list of specificquestions to be answered in agiven amount of time. (Based onRivers)Syntactic Clue Searching: Stu-

dents underline or tally mor-phemes of a certain category(such as verb endings, nounmarkers, and the like) in either areading or listening passage.(Based on Minn)

In the following passage, forexample, students might beasked to tally all occurrences ofthe demonstrative adjective:

Yo estoy en la universidad;estoy en una aula de la universi-dad. Esta auia es moderaa ycOmoda. La clase de espafiol esen esta aula. Este joven es unestudiante. Es norteamericano.Se llama Daniel. Esta at lado dela puerta, a la derecha. Elcuaderno del joven esta en lamesa. La cartera del estudianteesta debajo de la silla. (Barcia)

3. Semantic Clue Searching: This taskinvolves underlining or tallying lexi-cal items of a given category (such asdescriptive adjectives, adverbs oftime and place, medical terms,terms pertaining to education,foods, humor, etc.) (Minn, pp.

a. following passage in,r(c -1 'or example, students tally

.-11 -o ep denoting colors:I elni; d'acheter une nouvelle

(Ale est rouge t.vec dessr, 1.1:-bri,:s et noirs et un tapisugt . i Ile nest pas ch&e mais c'est

un n u.rr! raR'de et confortable.4. InJt re. 2 Search: This activity

inyolv': trading or i:stening to apassag with certain preposed ques-tions ill mind. Students may beasked to identify the foreign lan-guage equivalent of an English wordor to find an answer to a specificquestion.

For example, students listen to thefollowing passage and try to identifythe word equivalent to "depart-ments" in French universities:

Aujourd'hui c'est sarnedi. JacquesMarchand n'a pas de coursversite. Avec sa cousine, Francoise

a N I

Laraux, it se protnine au uartierLatin_ Le Quartier Latin est le guar-tier des etudiants. 11 y a ply-arimfaculty} de l'univeisite de Paris. I)csGra.ndes Ecoles contrite l'Ecale Poly,technique et l'Ecole des Beaux -Artset beaucoup de lycees (Vald.man).ll'ho Siztd.7 Learners tr.dirate whichcharacter from a reading passagemade a particular statement. As afollow-up activity, they can be askedto find sentences or words from thereading that support their choices,

ti. Reverse Semantic Clone: Studentsare given a passage in which ex-traneous words have been inserteTheir task is to cross out the words_

that do not belong.You are looking for some wok

and you find an apple announce-ment near in-the newspaper. This adtells you to write to the personnelumbrella department .

7. Corrigezmoi: A story, paragraph,or sentence containing inappro-priate words whose meanings couldbe confused with the appropriatecontextual meaning is read. As stu-deras listen they are asked to noticethe inappropriate word and suggesta substEution (Rivers).

I put on my sleep. (slip)In my living room I have a lamp.

a sofa, and two green armpits. (arm-chairs)

Cc matin, j'ai tres femme. (faim)IDiefride esti Pablo? Esta en su car-

ter°. (cuarto)B. CATEGORIZING/CLUSTERING:

Tasks requiring the student to list orotherwise isolate items of a certaingrammatical or semantic category.

Category Li Ping: Students create alist of words belonging to a givencategory (such as words that pertainto sports, a list of fruits or vege-tables. a list of items in the class-room that could be put in a suitcase,etc.).

9. Card Sorting: Vocabulary wordswritten on notecards are sorted ac-

339

cording to the category to whichthey belong, such as sports, cloth-ing. foods. A given category can alsobe further subdivided. such as team

.-rsus individual sports, summercrsus winter clothing, etc.

10. Find Odd Word: A short list ofvocabulary words is given to thelearner. All the-words are related ex-cept one. The student's task is toindicate which ward does not belongon the list,nature les sports madresunshine he football padreauthority le tennis criadacamping l'hatel hermano

1 1 . Blank is to Blank: Pairs of wordsthat are related in some way (such asantonyms, synonyms, superordi-nates, etc.) are used in this activity.A third word is given and studentsare asked to find an appropriatematch.Tooth: Dentist Hair

(Barber)12. Error Categorizing: After the

teacher has returned a correctedcomposition, students are asked tolist their mistakes, putting them intocategories such as spelling errors,tense errors, vocabulary mistakes,etc.

13. Discrimination Tasks: Students pickthe correct word from a list of wordsthat are similar in form or meaning.

1 went to thea. widowb. windowc. windingd. willow

14. Segmenting: This activity in-volves listening to sentences andisolating their component parts.The task may be to identify theactor in each sentence, theobject, or the action. At a moreadvanced level, learners may berequired to identify main or sub-ordinate clauses, such as relativeor conditional clauses.

The girl who is standing by thewindow is my sister.

,1() MANE IS' BIM:1031CW .

The little old lady in tennisshoes was bitten by a big dog.

C. MEANINGFULNESS JUDG-MENT/PROCESSING: Tasks requir-ing the student to judge the meaning-fulness or acceptability of an utterancein the foreign language, express anopinion, or evaluate a series of sate-men's.15. Sentence Sense: In this activity

the student's task is to judgewhether a sentence is meaning-ful. If the sentence is not mean-ingful, the student changes it sothat it makes sense.

The old man sat quietly on theceiling.

The loudly person made a lotof noise.

16. Ranking: Students are given alist of related vocabulary words(such as a list of foods, animals,gifts. etc.) and are asked to rankthem according to their personalpreferences.

17. Either-Or Questions: In this ac-tivity, the class is given questionsto which two or three alternativeanswers are provided. Their taskis to choose one of the alterna-tives in answering each question.

18. Agree/Disagree: Students areasked tc agree or disagree with agiven statement. If they dis-agree, they reword the statementso that it represents their ownideas.

GENERAL ANALYTICAL TASKS:Tasks incorporating all of the abovecategories,19. Making up Questions: After

reading or listening to a passage,class members make up ques-tions pertaining to the content.

20. Dictation: Students write sen-tences dictated to them by theteacher. The sentences may alsobe on tape.

11. SYNTHESIS: Activities- requiring the stu-dent to go beyond analysis to recombine ele-ments of the language and create an or-ganized whole. Includes activities such asresumes and organizational tasks.

21. Résumé: Second Language:Using a list of sentences providedby the teacher, students choosethose that best summarize areading or listening passage.

22. -Résumé in English: After read-ing or listening to a passage 'inthe second language, the classmembers write a short résumé ofthe content in English_

23. Create a Title: Learners arcOven several titles from whichthey choose the one that bestsummarizes the reading or listen-ing passage, They can also beasked to create a title or titles ontheir own, or write a short moralto a story in the second lan-guage.

24. Strip Story: Each student in asmall group of four or five is

given a sentence from a story.They are asked to memorize thesentence without letting anyoneelse see it. Each student tells thegroup his sentence as quickly aspossible (Gilson).

25. Sentence Builder: This task in-volves creating sentences by com-bining words or phrases fromdifferent columns.

la socitteles cigarettesla guerrele sexeles femmesl'amour

A basArr&ezCherchezFaitesToujoursDemander

26. Embedding: Students are given ashort sentence and asked in turnto add clauses, adjectives, ad-verbs, etc., to the sentence, mak-ing it progressively longer.

The woman is blond.The woman who is standing

over there is blond.The woman who is standing

over there by the window isblond.

M. IC; 1'1/12'1:."

The woman who is standingfiver there by the window that isopen is blond.

27. Scrambled Sentences: In thistask, scrambled sentences mustbe re-ordered into their normalsyntactic order.

28, Dehydrated Sentences: Studentsare given parts of a sentence andare asked to fill Out the rest of itadding proper function wor ds,verb endings, etc.

29, Scrambled Composition: Thistask is much like "ScrambledSentences," but whole sentences,not words, need to be re-orderedinto a meaningful and coherentparagraph. The paragraph canbe based on a story already reador a recombination of words andstructures with which the stu-dents are familiar. Student com-positions can also be used for thisactivity.

III. FLEXIBILITY: Tasks requiring the studentto -find equivalencies, think of paraphrases,expand upon .a cue or an idea, or maketransformations. They should help studentsincrease their flexibility with the languageand thereby increase fluency.

30. Making Contradictions: Stu-dents respond to a statement bymaking contradictory state-ments,

Teacher: "Cinderella's child-hood was happy.-

St .dent 1: "No, it was very un-happy.-

Student 2: -She had to do allthe hard work."(S tanislawczyk and Y avener,p. 25)

31. Semantic Matching: In ColumnA. a set of sentences is given;equivalent or near-equivalentsentences are then chosen fromColumn B,Column AI. I hate cooking.2. You don't have any tact.

-3. Do you like Montreal?4. He doesn't have any money.

.7)/ 7 .1. 71',_ WEDS 341

Column Ba. Is life in Montreal pleasant?b. He's not rich.c. I don't like to f repa re dinner.d. He's not very diplomatic.Syntactic Matching: This ac-

ty is very similar to the onedescribed above except that thefocus is on grammatical transfor-mations.

The dog bit the cat,The cat was bitten by the dog.

33. Oral Semantic Matchi:ag: In thisactivity Student A has a list ofsent-nces which he reads to hispartner. The partner has a list ofsentences equivaler.t in meaningbut arranged in a differentorder. As Student A reads hissentences, Student B reads aloudthe sentence on his list with theequivalent meaning.

34. Retell: Students take a messageeither in person or on the phonefor someone else. Their task is totransmit that message as accu-rately as possible to a thirdparty.

35. Cartes de conversation: Pairs oflearners ask each other questionslisted on. a conversation or inter-view card (Bonin and Birck-bichler).Ask your partner Card 1

what sport he/she likesif he/she plays basketballif he/she prefers skiing or golfif he/she plays tennis

Ask your partner Card 2if he/she is athleticif he/she likes basketballif he/she plays golfif he/she prefers tennis or

football36. ComP/etion: Students complete

in a meaningful way a sentenceor a paragraph.E.g.,_

When I'm tired, IWhen I'm afraid, II am ashamed when I

37. Transformation Drills: Gram-

1'2 111 fLICEC MAGGIO

matical exercises that ask stu-dents to make transformations.substitutions, and the like can beassigned to students workingalone or in groups.Question Expansion: Given aquestion (e.g.. "Do you likesports?"), class members createadditional questions relating tothe same topic. (E.g., "What'syour favorite sport? Do you liketo watch sports on T. V.? Do youprefer team or individualsports?")

39, Creating with Visuals: Learnerscreate original captions for aseries of visuals from a magazineor cartoon strip. They might alsobe asked to create a compositionbased on a series of visuals orcartoons.

40. Vocabulary: Create a Context:Students are given a short list ofidioms or vocabulary and createan original story or paragraphusing all the words on the list_They may do this task alone or ina group.

41. Rose' Technique: Class membersare placed in pairs or in largergroups. Each student has a blankpiece of paper. He listens to hispartner or the group leader whohas a picture to describe (theteacher can provide the pictureor students can choose theirown). As his partner describesthe picture. the student tries todraw a rough duplicate accord-ing to the description he hears(Boylan and Omaggio; adaptedfrom Rose. Suzanne et al.).

42. Group Brainstorming: Studentsare Oven statements and areasked to find as many ways to ex-press the same idea in differentwordS'.E g .

Teacher: Ernst is unhappytoday.

Student 1: He is miserable.Student 2: He is not happy.

Student 3: He is sad,Student 4: He is not ecstatic.etc.

43. Jigsaw Puzzles: Groups of four orfive learners are given cards,each with a word on it. Each per-son describes his word in theforeign language to the others inthe group without actually usingit. When all students have de-scribed their word successfully,the students take the first letterof each and see what new wordthe letters spell out. (Puzzle partsmight also depict objects in aroom; in this case, when all thewords have been guessed, thegroup decides which room of thehouse has been described.)(Ornaggio)

44. Be Wordy: A topic sentence or aseries of topic sentences is givenand class members fill out therest of the paragraph.

45. Cue Insertion: Students expandeach sentence of their originalcompositions by adding informa-tion. (For example, they can ex-pand the information tic t is al-ready in the paragraph. or adddescriptive words.) The teachermay want to insert appropriatecue words within the text of thecomposition to serve as a guide.

46. Trans/allow Sentences or para.graphs are translated from thenative language into the secondlanguage Of vice-versa.

IV. MAKING INFERENCES: Tasks requiringthe student to analyze and synthesize infor-mation tci make inferences about what amissing cue would be or what conclusionscan be drawn from certain information.

47. Cloze Adaptation: Students fillin the blanks of a paragraph bychoosing from given options orby providing appropriate words.

48. Contextual Guessing: A para.graph in which new vocabularywords have been underlined isprovided. Learners must try toguess the meaning of each new

14 WANT IV, 111 CKIIIC/11,E1.14AID .4 TICE C OAT-1G010

Nour ae of

gralern +,1'

Nectl

lagening Speaking Reading

learning Task

Vriting Grammar

1.0. St 14.17.18.34. 914.36,51 1.8.94 0.56 2.14.54,56,19,21,22,24 35.36.51.55 21,22.41.56 17.55 47,5511, 54. 55. 56

Hexikilitv 21 26.30.33. 1.51.32. 25 26,30_ 8.25.31. 25,32,34,3618,50 34.38.39.40, 17.48.50 34.36,38 33,36,40

39 40,41 12,13.4846,11) 42.44.45.50

luau Impulsive 2.3.4,5,7, 7,12,17 2,3,1,5, 7.17.18. 3.6,7,9,10. 2.6.13.15.131 4,15 19. 18.31.35.41. 6.7.13,15 20.27.28. 13.15.16, 16.17.27.20,21,22.49. 53.51 16,19,21. 29.11,46. 21.28,46, 28.4651.52 22.29,49. '15,5255

51,52

Too Reflective 4,23,31, 25.33,42, 1.4.23.31. 25,42,14 25.31,33, 25,32,54.4752.4748 44 32.47.19 42,4746

Field Dependent 2,3 4.5.7, 1.2,3,4,5, 1.2,6,7,14.19,21.22 6,7,14,21, 17,48 14,47,1825 22,23,47.18,

[Wad 2.3.4,7.10. 7.8.12 2,3.6,9. 12.20,28 3,6.7,8,9, 2.6,8,11.CategortzeT 1413.15 10,11,15.15 10.11,13,15 12.13,15

Narrow 2 5 10,91 8.51.42 31,32 8.31,33 32Categoilaer 32 31.32

Low Tolerance

otArnhignity4,15.47.48 25.33,42

47,48

25.53.42 25.33.42,

47.48

32.47

4) Specificity of Purpose. Teachers canidentify with greater specificity the pur-pose and cognitive demands of any taskthey decide to assign to individuallearners. When task demands are clearlyidentified, the activities can be assignedp those students who need them themost.

Our profession has been saying for some timethat we must respond to the needs and prefer-ences of the individual learner, These sugges-tions constitute one viable, practical way toachieve this very important goal.

REFERENCES

Barcia, Jose Robb. Lerigua y cultura. New York: Halt,Rinehart and Winston. 1973.

Bonin, Therese M. and Diane W. Birckbichler. "Real Com-munication through Conversation and Interview Cards."The Modern Language Journal, 59 (1976): 22-25.

Boylan, Patricia and Alice Ornaggio. Strategies for Person-C entered Language Learning. Detroit: AdvancementPress. 1976.

Gibson, Robert E. "The Strip Story: Catalyst for Communi-cation.- TESOL Quarteriv, 9 (1975): 149-154.

Guilford, J. P. The Nature of Human Intelligence. NewYork: McGraw-Hill. 1976.

Ilosenfeld. Carol. "The New Student Role: Individual Dif-ferences and Implications for Instruction,- 129-167 inGilbert A. Jarvis (Editor). Perspectwe: A New Freedom.The ACTFL Review of Foreign Language Education.Skokie. Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1975.

Jacobson. Rodolfo. "Incorporating Sociolinguistic Normsinto an EFL Program." TESOL Quarterly. 10 (1975):411=422.

Jarvis, Gilbert A. Class Notes.et al. Connottre et se cohnahre. New York: Bolt,

Rinehart and Winston, 1976.Minn, Jay Paul. -Clue-Searching: An Aid to Comprehen-

sion," 93-100 in Renate Schulz (Editor), Teaching forCommunication in the Foreign Language Classroom: AGuide for Building the Modern Curriculum. Report ofCentral States Conference on the Teaching of ForeignLanguages. Skokie, Illinois: National Textbook Com-pany, 1976.

Ornaggio, Alice. "Real Communication: Speaking a LivingLanguage." Foreign Language A n na ,9 (1976):131 -133.

Rivers, Wilga. A Practical Guide to the Teaching of French.New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

WA(

wird from the context. A relatedactivity uses nonsense words in-stead of new vocabulary. Thestudent must find the nonsensewords and replace them with ap-propriate vocabulary,

The old man sitting on thedrutz was eating a banana. Hedropped the grutchen on thefloor_ When lie got up. hegropped on the grutchen andbroke his frimpus. He couldn'tsnarkle for weeks!

49. Identifying Visuals: Students areasked to identify an object orscene orally or in writing bychoosing the appropriate visualfrom a selection of 3 or 4 pic-tures_ They may also put visualsin the proper order based on aparagraph that they read orhear.

50, Style Shifting; After reading orlistening to a short dialogue fromwhich the names of the charac-ters have been deleted, studentsidentify who the speakers mighthave been, basing their decisionson the style of the person'sspeech. They might also createsuch dialogues orally or inwriting. ( Based on Jacobsen.)

l Identification: Thistask asks the learner to identifywhich character from a dia-logue, short story, play_ , etc..might have made a statement.The actual statement is notmade in the original text but isreflective of the character's per-sonality.

52. Logical Continuation: Recep-inv.- Students are given a pair ofseatenees either orally or in writ-ing and are asked to indicatewhetl.er or not the second sen-tenct. follows logically from thefirst.

John Never goes out onnights.

He went to the movies Tues-day.

53. Logical Coot inuatzon: Produc-tive: After reading a statementor a paragraph each learner thenproduces a sentence that logi-cally follows.

V. IMPROVING MEMORY: Tasks designedto help the student expand his capacities forremembering words, phrases, sentences,ideas in the foreign language.

54. Remembering Responses: After stu-dents have answered a series of per-sonalized questions based on thethemes and structures of the lesson,members of the class are asked to re-call some of the responses that weregiven.

55. Memory Games: Memory games canfocus on vocabulary or structures.Typical memory games includechain sentences or stories, whisper-down-the-lane (or -telephone"), etc.

56. Did You Hear? Students listen to ashort narrative. They then hear aseries of sentences, some of whichwere in the text. Their task is toseparate the sentences they. heardfrom ones they did not hear.

Summary

There are various advantages to the approachdescribed in this article. Some of the most im-portant ones are listed below:

1) Adaptability. Activities can be used forindividual, small-group and large-groupinstruction in structured or less-struc-tured settings.

2) Ease of Preparation. With relatively fewchanges, existing textbook exercises,reading passages, and dialogues can beadapted for remedial purposes using theactivity models described above.

3) Manageability. The same materials canbe used as a basis for a wide variety oflearning activities that respond to the dif-fering needs of students in the classroom.For example, the student who is an im-pulsive reader can search for specific cuesin a reading passage while another stu-dent who has trouble reading rapidly canskim the same passage for the generalidea.

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llatrrences Glenview Illinois- Scott Foreman, 1972.anislawcia: Irene. E. and Symntut Yayrier. Creativity in

the Language Classroom Ftttwlrt, Massachusetts: New-bury !oose, 1974.

aldrnall Albert. Lang, -id Y k: Macmillan1975