1Foreign Language Teaching: Instruction and Interaction Strategies

During the last two decades, the scope of foreign language teaching in many developed and developing countries has expanded at a tre-mendous speed. New technologies have been explored to see if they can help facilitate the task of learning languages which are foreign to one’s environment. Many institutions have been busy initiating new programmes of teaching modern languages by preparing instructional materials (manuals, reading texts, tapes, etc.) based on a variety of approaches, and with audio-visual aids of many varieties. Today, enormous progress has been claimed in the production of textbooks at all levels, from &dquo;pictionaries&dquo; and conversational cut-out books to individually programmed kits which teachers are finding highly superior to conventional textbooks. The University of Pennsylvania (1971) has designed an individualized instructional management system for teaching South Asian languages. In this system teaching is not solely confined to a classroom, (or a language laboratory) but the &dquo;instructor&dquo; adjust