Engagement in self and peer assessment are authentic ways in which students can develop evaluative and productive knowledge and expertise, necessary prerequisites if they are to become autonomous learners. Teachers in the current study who had articulated similar beliefs in regard to the importance of developing student autonomy and who had…

Examined preschool children's self-management as they engaged in a literacy task of constructing an "autonomous" text for others to read. Analyzed texts for their holistic quality, and identified metacognitive utterances surrounding the texts, which showed the development of metacognition and its indications for preschoolers. (JPB)

An examination of the effectiveness of the use of various computer-based communication tools (commercial computer conferences, bulletin boards, word processors, outline processors, and electronic dictionaries) in developing college students' Spanish proficiency suggested that computers offered potential for enhancing the writing process. (38…

To test the hypothesis that induced mental imagery would facilitate the contemplation and reflection that have been suggested as being important to the writing process, a study investigated the effects of instructions to induce mental imagery upon the written language of young children. Subjects, 28 third grade children, were randomly assigned to…

Investigates the effects of two types of written comments on student compositions and learning of course content. Supports the idea that content comments seem to help students write better essays. Suggests that writing reflectively and thoughtfully about a topic increases learning of that topic. (JK)

The ability of foreign students to read non-scientific material efficiently is important for rapid social and cultural integration. This report describes the reading comprehension section of a French language course aimed at foreign students at the Nancy Science Faculty. Exercises are presented which cover morpho-syntactic, communicative and…

Observation of English-as-a-Second-Language students' small-group writing activities involving a word processor found that the word processor was a valuable tool in promoting writing abilities and providing excellent interactional activity. (four references) (Author/CB)

The relationships of quantitative measures of writing skills to overall writing quality as measured by the E.T.S. Composition Evaluation Scale (CES) were examined. Quantitative measures included indices of language productivity, vocabulary diversity, spelling, and syntactic maturity. Power of specific indices to account for variation in overall…

The papers in this volume discuss practical approaches to some of the current problems of degree-level language teaching. Section one discusses non-literary registers in advanced language teaching including the use of texts in teaching, suggestions for a course in practical sociolinguistics, and exercises for advancing from paraphrase to an…