Based on his experience of being trained in a process-centered pedagogy and of working in a product-centered program, a writing instructor discovers that the in-class essay is not only a useful or workable part of a regressive curriculum, but that it is effective and necessary for any progressive process orientation as well. Pragmatic, ethical,…

After presenting a series of assumptions about the teaching of playwriting (for example, that students can be taught the craft, if not the art, of playwriting; students must be kept to a strict deadline if they are to develop into disciplined writers; and playwriting should never be discussed outside the context of production possibilities), this…

Intended for elementary school language arts and reading teachers, this paper presents classroom activities using poetry to encourage divergent thinking and to give children the chance to play with language and to practice English language conventions in order to be effective readers and writers. The 12 activities are (1) combining poetry and…

Technical communication teachers need to recognize the increasing diversity of their classroom populations and become more flexible in planning curricula without "watering down" students' expectations to leave the courses more skilled than they were upon entering. Teachers should discuss with students some of their writing barriers and the…

It is proposed that through the use of whole language techniques, an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher can incorporate holistic language situations into the ESL classroom and advance the student's acquisition of a second language. Whole language techniques such as spontaneous conversation, brainstorming with semantic maps, dialogue…

Class activities for developing Spanish proficiency in third- and fourth-year high school students and first- and second-year college students are presented. Activities include a discussion of teaching for proficiency, drawing on recent research, and notes on the design and intent of the activities. Sample exercises for listening comprehension…

This college-level textbook, entirely in Arabic, is designed to help students develop specific reading skills, namely, skimming and scanning. Users should have had at least 30 quarter hours of Arabic instruction previously. The reading selections and tasks are intended to promote reading fluency by also increasing reading speed. Learner tasks also…

Reading, writing, speech assignments for special education classes, English as a second language and many other classroom projects can be taught through the involvement created by Readers Theatre. Readers Theatre is the presentation of dialogue-type material in play form. The actors hold the script as they move through it and a narrator's voice…

The workbook, designed for use by adults learning to read, contains a series of brief personal narratives with photo illustrations and related comprehension and extension exercises. The first section's narratives focus on family relationships and description of the personal characteristics of seven individuals. The second section contains stories…

A discussion of the communicative approach in the second language classroom reasserts its value while highlighting some of the difficulties in implementing the approach: time constraints; difficulty in providing motivation for communication in the more formal language registers; potential imbalance in emphasis on oral and written communication…

To prevent children with reading difficulties from thinking of themselves as failures, academic experiences must include projects that will motivate them to be responsible learners, enhance their self-concept, and reinforce all the language arts skills. One class of sixth grade students with reading disabilities made minibooks from greeting cards…

A survey of students of English as a Second Language at the University of South Florida found most ranked listening and/or speaking skills as most important to learn, and reading and writing skills much lower. They also perceived the inverse to be true of teachers. The challenge is to create a curriculum that provides for listening and speaking…

The use of writing exercises to promote critical thinking in large pharmacy classes is discussed. Techniques for targeting specific higher order thinking skills, different types of in-class writing activities, and evaluation methods (self-evaluation, peer evaluation, feedback) are outlined. (MSE)

The textbook for students of intermediate English as a Second Language (ESL) is based on cross-cultural communication misunderstandings described in essays written by university students. It consists of 20 instructional units, each beginning with a real student's dilemma caused by cultural differences and each dealing with one particular custom.…

This document consists of five years (1988-1992, 10 issues) of the Singapore-based journal "Guidelines." Issues contain articles on a variety of topics in second language teaching. Topics include classroom language teaching strategies, techniques for teaching specific language skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) or knowledge…