Vaccination against influenza has substantial health-related and economic benefits for healthy, working adults.

This study investigates the role of social interaction in language gain among study abroad students in France. Using the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), the Can‐Do self‐assessment scale (Clark, 1981), a revised version of the Language Contact Profile (LCP; Freed, Dewey, Segalowitz, & Halter, 2001), and preand postdeparture questionnaires, we examine gains in oral proficiency as related to language contact in the study abroad environment. This research shows that language gain is possible during a semester‐long study abroad program. It does not uphold the common belief that living situation and contact with authentic media differentiate students who improve from those who do not. Looking at the background of students (age, gender, grade point average, etc.), it reveals that only prior coursework in French correlates strongly with gains in proficiency once abroad. In its most surprising finding, this study suggests that speaking French with Americans may impede proficiency development.

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Studies (22, p. 42) recommended the establishment of "language proficiency achievement goals for the end of each year of study at all levels, with special attention to speaking proficiencf In this same year, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) launched the oral proficiency interview in academia through the Testing Kit workshops. Now, seven years later, academic interest in oral proficiency testing has developed to the point where some institutions are beginning to associate expectations for student performance with specific proficiency levels, as measured by the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI).' We see the effects of this phenomenon both in the creation of proficiency-based requirements to replace credit-based requirements and in the appearance of articles and course material that focus instruction toward proficiency-oriented goak3However, such association of proficiency levels with levels of study is, at present, problematic, since we cannot yet adequately describe our students' linguistic competence in proficiency-based terms. As Lalande (14, p. 2) states, "it was never clear what differences in communicative skills were reasonable to expect from one level of language instruction to the next!' Before we can set standards in terms of the OPI, and then rely on those standards to orient curricular change, we need to identify the ability of our students. In other words, we need to understand the result of current instruction before we establish expectations for future performance.Another problem is that the OPI assesses only the speaking skill. Unfortunately, until we have adequate testing instruments-perhaps analagous to, perhaps essentially different from, the OPI-we cannot systematically gather information on listening, reading, writing, and culture.