Examines how teachers use questions to socialize and control students. (FL)

In a discussion of the role of language in education, education is viewed as a semiotic apprenticeship, or opportunity to gain the cultural tools and practices for meaning-making in construction of knowledge. This process occurs through guided participation in discipline-based forms of inquiry. In this enterprise, language is seen as having a…

Reports on a pilot investigation of learner feedback and its effects on teacher/learner interactions, based on data collected from 12 ESL dyads and triads. Describes the methods used for data collection and data analysis, the latter involving classification of both learner feedback and teachers' post-feedback responses. (Author/ MES)

Emphasizes that although computer technology opens the door to great possibilities for teaching language, it will only be as powerful as the programs developed to go with the machines. Since the language lab remains one of the principal tools in foreign language education, it is hoped that computer assisted instruction will reflect back onto tape…

Many college freshmen find it difficult to explore their ideas about writing in the presence of teachers who have already decided the agenda for their student-teacher conferences. Teachers often feel compelled to lead the conversation and fall into an authoritarian model of interaction, "depositing" knowledge into students and ignoring…

Argues that college teachers will have an easier and more productive experience with student writing if they make and communicate the distinction between high-stakes and low-stakes assignments and between high- and low-stakes ways of responding to student writing. Specific suggestions are made for communicating assignments and commenting on them.…

Two types of feedback are examined, and their use in controlling the processes of instructional development and improvement are discussed. Closed-loop feedback, the most direct, uses immediate feedback about a process or product to make immediate adjustments in it. Open-loop feedback, in which input cannot be changed immediately, uses feedback to…

The difficulties and the advantages of giving oral critiques of student speeches are discussed. The advantages of using oral critiques are such that many speech teachers will want to include them. It is argued in this paper that the difficulties associated with oral critiques can be overcome by using communication messages that are intended to…

The single most important thing that a teacher can do for a student is to identify and label specifically what the child does right rather than what he or she does wrong. In an elementary school where students wrote every day and teachers marked every error, students began to write less, using simpler words and eliminating all meaningful writing.…

Emphasizes that learning is influenced by the student's active response to instruction. Teachers are advised to remain aware of student responses by initiating work contracts with students and are encouraged to help students learn to respond appropriately to instruction by arranging the classroom environment so that attention and motivation are…

Aspects of the perception that assessment is a large-scale testing program conducted at institutional or state levels to determine what students have learned from college is questioned. Small-scale assessments conducted continuously in college classrooms by discipline-based teachers to determine what students are learning in what class are also…

Recommends that college teachers and their students exchange weekly letters, in either paper or electronic form, as a familiar and friendly means of communication. The method increases dialog, suggests rethinking, and encourages rewriting while keeping the stakes low. Students respond well to the assignment. Samples of student letters and comments…

This collection of columns on teaching English as a Second Language in Japan appeared on the English education page of a Japanese English-language newspaper over a period of almost 4 years. Article topics include these: principles of second language learning; differences between language skills; standards of usage; avoiding stereotypes; school…