A study considered whether nonnative English-speaking students are educationally handicapped in American classrooms by their communication competence (CC) and/or communication apprehension (CA). Affective, cognitive, and behavioral learning outcomes of 298 international college students' CA, immediacy (degree of perceived physical or psychological…

Oral interpretation facilitates the learning processes of adolescents by making the presentation of subject matter more interesting and meaningful to them, helping them feel involved, and providing them with an opportunity to perceive literature in action. Narrative literature is a good place to begin oral interpretation activities, since…

A cognitive developmental theory of reading was proposed and tested in a longitudinal study that (1) compared the development of conceptual reasoning (Piaget's "operativity") and oral language (vocabulary and grammar closure) of 148 Australian children during the first 5 years of school and (2) traced the relationship of these variables to reading…

Two main points should be noted concerning strategies recommended for teaching basic writing students. First, teachers can develop only those strategies that are consonant with their own personalities and that will enable students to develop their own writing strategies. Second, whatever strategies are selected should lead students beyond the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 34 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) object conservation and receptive language in day care center infants; (2) the syntactic incorporation of linguistic units; (3) implicit theories of meaning in…

Seven articles on higher education in Australia are presented, along with two review articles. "Operation Bootstrap--Reflections of a Staff Developer" (Colin Flood Page) offers views on various aspects of college learning and teaching. Findings of a study on student learning through essay-writing are presented in "Essay Planning and…

An experiment investigated the effectiveness of teaching grammar by deductive versus inductive methods in an intensive course in English as a second language. Additional student variables considered were general intelligence, verbal ability, cognitive ability, and sex. The subjects were 259 students in the Faculty of Education at Egypt's Tanta…

The objectives, philosophy, methodology, and materials for French instruction in Newfoundland and Labrador elementary schools are outlined and discussed. The principal objective is to develop the pupil's potential for spontaneous communication. This objective can be achieved through a basic knowledge of the French language, the application of this…

A teaching model is a distinct set of ordered steps or phases created to achieve certain outcomes. These outcomes are different for different models, although some similarities exist among certain models, thus permitting the formation of model "clusters." These clusters or families include the information processing family, personal family, social…

Part 1 of this paper discusses contributions made by diverse schools of thought in the philosophy of education to the development of a relevant social studies curriculum. The relevance of major philosophical approaches to teaching and learning is considered in light of the approaches' influences on instructors' teaching styles and students'…

A study investigated the way in which children make use of morphemic information when they are learning to spell. Specifically, it examined the use of morphemic information in spelling compound words; the use made of morphemic information when adding suffixes to words, and the way the morphological rule governing the formation of the past tense is…

A study investigated how eighth grade students used a microcomputer-based word processing system for composing. Five students, with a range of writing skills, used the technology across 10 class sessions. Data were gathered through interviews with the students about their models for composing, experiences that influenced their writing development,…

Research studies on classroom questions and on learning models can provide information on how art criticism can be integrated into art education so that students are involved in exploratory experiences that tap higher levels of thinking. First, teachers need to be trained specifically in art criticism questioning formats in which there is an…

Preliminary findings of the Differential Coursework Patterns (DCP) Project are reported. The Project uses assessment test scores and transcripts from samples of graduating college seniors to determine what coursework patterns were related to gains in the general learned abilities of the students. Random samples of graduating seniors have been…

A report is given of a 3-year longitudinal study which has two strands, both of which are concerned with understanding better the complexities of teaching and learning science, knowing more of the processes by which individuals change, and understanding more of the research methodologies appropriate for these purposes. The first strand involves…