Oral Proficiency Base Lines for First- and Second-Year College German

Some years ago, Heidi Byrnes wrote with respect to the Oral Proficiency Interview: Two crucial questions have received remarkably little professional attention, as attested to by the dearth of research. These questions are (1) what is the ultimate level of language proficiency instructed learners can hope to reach under a given set of conditions, and (2) in what length of time can a given attainment level reasonably be expected.1 The data presented here are intended to provide partial answers to the second question by establishing preliminary oral proficiency base lines for first and second year college German based on the amount of instruction time and the teaching methodology employed. At the end of the spring semester 1990, the