An exploration of pronunciation tutorials designed for speakers of English as an additional language (EAL) in a university context in Australia suggests that developing abilities to speak clearly involves more than just focusing on the sounds that are uttered. Students' comments and observations collected during pronunciation tutorials highlight…

Legal reasoning is a type of problem solving, and is situated within thinking skills, one of the six threshold learning outcomes established under the auspices of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council's Bachelor of Laws Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Statement. The threshold learning outcomes define what law graduates are…

Academics often treat students' discipline-specific literacy as unproblematic. In doing so they may underestimate the difficulties for university students as they move between subjects of study that may involve different disciplines, language genres and academic practices. This paper describes an initiative aimed at supporting students in reading…

Active participation in university tutorials seems to be commonly argued as one of the learning difficulties of non-English-speaking background (NESB) Asian students enrolled in Western English-speaking universities. These students are often portrayed as being passive in class and this is commonly attributed to their background culture. Using…

The article describes the Parent and Child Tutoring (PACT) program in Adelaide, Australia, with children (ages 7 to 14) having severe reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, and attitudinal problems. Both parents attend group workshops and one parent participates in tutorial sessions. The program has been positively received by both parents and…

Describes the establishment and operation of adult Individual Learning Centres in New South Wales (Australia) colleges to provide a flexible alternative to existing college preparatory courses. The Centres include alternative instructional methods, individual study, self-instructional materials, open entry/exit arrangements, and teacher tutoring.…

Surveys earlier examples of course-based software and compares them with MacZi-known as Chinese Character Tutor in the Intel format, a program designed and produced at the University of New South Wales, Australia to teach students a basic vocabulary. Also reviews a student evaluation of the software's effectiveness and discusses how the program…

The reports of two innovative approaches to overcoming education problems in the isolated, sparsely populated areas of Western Australia are presented. Established in 1974, the Isolated Students Matriculation Scheme has combined traditional forms of correspondence education with a curriculum development unit and the development of mechanisms to…

Programs designed to enable Australian aborigines who had not successfully completed high school to qualify for science- and mathematics-related courses in higher education emphasize diagnostic testing, individualized instruction, short-term goals, and learner independence. Tutors have instructional, management, and support roles. Some early…

A report is given of the development in Australia of telephone tutorials for small group instruction of isolated students with and without the assistance of loudspeaking telephones. The following topics are covered: (1) why use telephone tutorials; (2) location of telephone tutorial centers; (3) equipment; (4) unit and staff selection; (5) pilot…

Outlines several realistic, practical, classroom-tested strategies for using computers to augment undergraduate history instruction. These include drawing on databases to provide illustrative examples during class lectures and tutorials centering on research questions to be answered in the computer lab. Describes a class project involving…

In 1992, a study at the University of Melbourne (Australia) investigated the experiences of 1,108 freshman students in the schools of arts, economics, and commerce. Based on the results, areas for improvement in curriculum design and faculty development were identified. The three faculties were then invited to develop teaching and curriculum…