Claims that the way people symbolize their experiences in speaking, listening, and writing can help them to understand literature and, ultimately, their personal life experiences. Claims that making meaning is fundamental to all language learning and that reading literature is analogous to other language learning experiences. (JD)

Discusses (1) how instructional objectives can become a constraint on students' learning, (2) how teachers need to help students overcome their fears about learning, and (3) the danger of fragmenting process approaches to learning into ritualized parts. (SRT)

Discusses the role of language in drama in education. Examines the levels at which drama can enhance learning and understanding of language: social, symbolic, and reflective. (HTH)

Explores a number of innovative professional development strategies for teachers. Examines the development and role of a teacher support group in Canada and its efforts to develop a language-process oriented classroom. (HTH)

The current state of research on language learning processes is reviewed, and the implications of that research for language arts teachers are discussed. (HTH)

Discusses recent research highlighting both the child's growth as a reflective language user and the school's capacity to enhance or hamper that growth. The research is concerned with the need for children eventually to use language in decontextualized ways, without the supporting context of visible or manipulable objects or actions. (HTH)

The conventions inherent to language are explored, and demonstrations, engagement, and sensitivity are discussed as factors present in all learning situations in which a person learns to master these complex conventions. (HTH)

British drama instructor discusses how drama provides a sense of immediacy to subjects or stories and to the discovery process of learning. She also discusses how the dialectic aspects of drama aids in children's language development. (HTH)

Reviews literature defining the characteristics of the complex puzzle children encounter moving from oral language to print. Illustrates that, by reading their own writing, children discover the precise connection between reading, writing, and language. (HTH)

Discusses the many ways in which conversation surfaces in a seventh-grade classroom and the significance that talk has for the students' linguistic and affective learning. Contains excerpts from student diaries and teacher responses to them. (HTH)

A kindergarten teacher recounts her experiences with a southeast Asian student as he progresses with the English language. The "beautiful book," in which the boy would illustrate words and dictate appropriate stories for the teacher to transcribe, was instrumental in the boy's language acquisition. (HTH)

Explores a five-year-old's writing about his liking for spiders to learn about the relationship between children's investigations of the world as information (content) and their use of language to do so. Discusses implications for teachers of children's ability to deal with concepts and vocabulary associated with content materials. (HTH)

Discusses two facets of the disparity between the way children learn and the way they are tested: the necessity of practice and the importance of prior knowledge. (FL)

Describes the progress of a kindergartern child acquiring English as her second language. (DF)