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THIS PAPER WAS WRITTEN in response to a request from the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies to help it in the "assessment of the results of current (or recent past) methodologies for Foreign Language teaching" on the college and university levels and in the "search for promising methodologies for the future." Specifically, we were asked to address the following questions: 1) What is the current state of foreign languageinstruction at the university level? What methodologiesare being used, how intensive are the courses, etc.; 2) Are demandsof the students(and the institutions) being met? Howsuccessful are foreign language programs in teaching the languages to the students? Howmuch of the foreign languageis retained without reinforcement, and for how long? 3) What hopeful new foreign language teaching methodologies are being developed? What do you see as the future of these methodologies? What is the extendedoutlook?In this paper we have attempted to answer those questions based on available evidence in published reports and on personal knowledge and experience. Space does not permit a critical assessment of current methodologies; our focus is, therefore, one of description and summarization of methods of teaching languages. We do not address methods of teaching literature or culture. While we realize fully that methods for those content areas need to be examined.

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