Willingness to communicate (WTC) in a target language is considered a critical variable impacting engagement when students learn the language. Notwithstanding the research conducted on WTC of students, fewer attempts have been made to investigate their willingness to listen (WTL), especially WTL augmentation. To address this gap, this research…

As with all learners, English learners (ELs) require more than basic reading and writing skills to successfully engage with rigorous academic content, progress through school, and be fully prepared for postsecondary education and careers. ELs must be able to access grade-level content while simultaneously developing proficiency and autonomy in…

The National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention (NCLII), a consortium funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), prepares special education leaders to become experts in research on intensive intervention for students with disabilities who have persistent and severe academic (e.g., reading and math) and behavioral…

The communicative approach is the most appropriate for teaching foreign languages to mixed-ability classes, because traditional grammar-translation, audiolingual, and audiovisual approaches to language instruction focusing largely on correctness of form and language use have appeal for only the most able learners and require abstraction of the…

Suggestions are presented on how to avoid "dead spots" in a language class, including how a routine activity can be altered to become part of a lesson and also a lengthy illustration of how a normal lesson can be upgraded to offer students a richer blend of instruction. (LB)

Describes the hearing between an applicant for Canadian citizenship and a citizenship court judge so that citizenship and English as a second language teachers can examine their classroom goals and methods to ensure their students' success in these interviews and in life in Canada. (Author/CB)

A stimulus equivalence procedure for the acquisition of English and Spanish words was evaluated with two adolescents having head injuries. Following training on one task, subjects attained and maintained high scores on all matching-to-sample tasks. Results suggest the procedure is effective for teaching foreign language skills to head-injured…

A survey of a random sample of Illinois elementary, junior, and senior high school second language teachers investigated three areas: (1) teacher preparation, training, and oral proficiency levels; (2) percent of the target language used by the teacher in the classroom within a specific time span; and (3) the teacher-perceived usefulness and…

Teaching techniques are means of achieving learning goals. This article shows the questions that a teacher can ask to check the effectiveness with which a technique is used. Although the information transfer technique is used for illustration, the questions are applicable to any technique. (13 references) (LB)

The success of Charles C. Fries' Oral Approach to teaching English as a second language (ESL) as promoted in Japan by the English Language Exploratory Committee in the late 1950s and early 1960s is examined according to Jack Richards' four major factors that affect the course of a teaching method: appeals to facts; appeals to authority; form of…

A study investigated the effectiveness of teaching French cleft constructions (e.g., "qui est-ce qui...) by three methods: in a contextual presentation; traditionally; and in a presentation influenced by syntactic theory and explaining the internal structure of the phrases. Results suggest formal grammar instruction should focus on familiar…

For an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course to be efficient, the learner and his/her communicative needs should be central in deciding course content and activities. Video can be highly motivating by presenting live instances of communication in the target environment. It is a valuable medium for intensive analysis of visual and nonverbal…

A sampling of classroom approaches for second language teaching included in the book "Methods That Work: A Smorgasbord of Ideas for Language Teachers" is outlined. The methods covered include Total Physical Response, Silent Way, The Natural Approach, several dramatization techniques, and the pragmatic curriculum. It is concluded that these methods…

Answers questions and presents user survey results regarding the applicability and effectiveness of the Tandberg IS-10 learning laboratory system for foreign language instruction. (CB)

An observation procedure that can be used to observe cooperative learning in French instruction is presented. The procedure consists of setting up the cooperative learning activity and observing whether the cooperative group displays the second-language discourse found to foster second-language learning. Forms for recording observations are…