This article compares previous language gain studies in foreign languages with new data on language gain in the instructed second language acquisition of Russian. The acquisition of listening, reading, speaking, and writing proficiency shows a significant correlation not only with hours of classroom instruction in immersion and nonimmersion settings, but also with grammatical competence. The data suggest that there is a ceiling effect in traditional classroom foreign language instruction.

Research on the beliefs of American university students about foreign language learning has been limited in three ways: First, students surveyed have generally been drawn only from beginning language classes. Second, research in this area has been conducted almost exclusively with students of French, German, and Spanish, the beliefs of learners of other languages —such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian — have been largely ignored. Third, published studies have focused on the beliefs of learners at only one institution, rather than at a number of institutions; the results of such studies are, therefore, also likely limited by the local conditions of the given institution. This paper presents an investigation of these three issues. The study is based on a survey of over 1,000 learners of 10 different languages at different levels of instruction in three different institutions. Data collected over a three‐year period are analyzed in order to compare the beliefs about language learning reported by learners in the present study with those held by learners in Horwitz's 1988 study, “The Beliefs about Language Learning of Beginning University Students.” Moreover, this paper presents comparisons of the beliefs of learners in their first year of instruction with the beliefs held by learners at other levels, of the beliefs of learners of commonly versus less commonly taught languages, and of the beliefs of learners at a public research institution with the beliefs of learners at small, private liberal arts colleges.

This article presents findings from a study that (a) established a series of criteria for assessing the equity of gender representation in foreign language (FL) textbooks, (b) applied the criteria to a number of Russian-language textbooks in order to compare them on this basis as a case study, and (c) considered the criteria as a basis for the examination of gender representation in FL textbooks in general. The study hypothesized that (a) a series of sound criteria would yield information concerning the equity of gender representation of textbooks examined and demonstrate that recent textbooks were more equitable than textbooks published 10 or 20 years ago, and that (b) textbooks written by women or by a team of authors including at least one woman would be more equitable in terms of gender representation than textbooks written only by men. The analysis identifies areas of greatest inequity in gender representation by examining the data for each criterion across all the textbooks examined.

This paper examines error gravity research design and its theoretical assumptions. Based on an analysis of 28 errorgravity investigations (1977–1995), we study several aspects of error gravity research design (including, e.g., the authenticity of language sample), and theoretical constructs (such as the definition of “error”). The study demonstrates that investigators have only skimmed the surface of the process of error evaluation, which is undoubtedly shaped by extralinguistic factors. We conclude that researchers should reconceptualize error gravity research and should reassess earlier studies to confirm or disaffirm their stated outcomes.