Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/153

CHAPTER 4 1. . ('What will be the trainee's relative to speakers of the language -- and bearers of the culture -- in which he is interested?') This information may be given in the form of a careful prose description. The source of the information itself may be discussion, questionnaires, surveys, or some combination of these.

2. . ('What kinds of will the trainee need to handle?') This information is best given in the form of a list of problems or tasks. Some of these may involve social situations of interest to a broad spectrum of trainees, while others will be within special fields of interest or technical specialization.

3. ('  will the student need to understand, speak, read and write the language?')

This information as it comes from spokesmen for the future audience will not be in technical linguistic terms, but will be stated functionally, perhaps somewhat as follows:

The above statement, which is based on an official description of the Foreign Service Institute's widely-circulated S-3 rating, represents a rather high goal. Much less demanding would be:

The trainee must learn to ask and answer questions on topics that are very familiar to him; he may not understand even simple sentences unless they are repeated at a slower rate than normal speech; he may