Examines teacher-student exchanges in three content-based language classrooms. Data reveal persistent archetypal patterns of classroom interaction; teachers speak most of the time, and they initiate the majority of the exchanges by asking display questions, whereas student-initiated requests are referential. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Examines three factors that influence student learning and motivation of beginner foreign-language listening skills: text, context, and gender. Studies responses of fifth graders to computer-based foreign-language learning. Results indicate that providing text with spoken words facilitates the acquisition of listening skills, increases student…

Explores the relationship between teenagers' working memory and school achievement. Experiments revealed significant correlations between the two, specifically in the field of foreign language. Includes descriptions of the experiments with accompanying statistical tables. (MJP)

Examines strategies students use while performing a listening comprehension task and the relationship between strategy use and listening ability. Eighty-three students registered for first-, second-, third-, and fourth-semester Spanish participated. The first-semester students scored the highest and the second-semester students, the lowest on…

Comparison of the listening comprehension of second language learners completing three different prelistening activities after one and two exposures to a passage shows that scores for subjects completing the question preview activity were higher than for subjects completing the filler activity and that additional exposure improves comprehension.…

Describes an effort to teach French to boys with emotional and behavioral difficulties. The teaching used was based on lexical chunks of language rather than grammatical structures in order to create motivation and maintain interest in the short time available each week. The students greeted the lessons with enthusiasm and grew in self-esteem and…

Examines the sociocultural-linguistic processes involved in writing stories in English and French for 2 bilingual children, aged 10 and 11, in Quebec. Points out differences between the children in their views of play, schooling, and story creation. Proposes a unity of process across both languages that is mirrored in the writing of first- and…

Classroom interaction data from traditional and activity-based English classes of different sizes are compared in terms of opportunities for learners to interact meaningfully. Findings suggest that the nature of the teaching-learning activities and the teacher's role and attitude influence learner participation more than class size. (24…

This case study of an international teaching assistant's experience with college teaching focuses on the process of becoming an effective instructor in the undergraduate classroom. A developmental model that emphasizes clarifying the student's individual linguistic, cultural, social, and professional goals is suggested, and implications for…

Discussion of computer-based second-language learning focuses on a study of elementary school students in grades four through six who used a contextualized computer environment that was designed to provide precommunicative practice with Spanish. Highlights include student roles in small groups, cooperative learning, and the teacher's role.…

Comparison of three training conditions for Spanish-vocabulary development with 30 deaf undergraduates found no significant differences for short-term memory. However, long-term-memory scores under the repeated writing condition were significantly higher than scores under the fingerspelling or silent-reading conditions. (Author/DB)

Sixty middle school students, half average-achieving and half with learning disabilities (LD), were assigned to either a positive or neutral mood induction condition prior to receiving instruction in elementary Hindi language (to control for effects of prior knowledge). Across a two-week period, the LD students in the positive condition performed…

Provides a rationale for online instructional practice in teacher education and in foreign language learning and summarizes the online teaching and learning strategies applied by the partners in a telecommunications partnership between two universities-one in the United States and one in Taiwan. (AEF)

This article presents a framework to guide special education services for English language learners. Policies and procedures that can minimize disproportionate representation are suggested, as are recommendations for appropriate referral, assessment, and instructional practices. Multidisciplinary teams are discussed and placement options for…

Introduces a collection of articles that address the following issues: authority and morality in classroom discourse; becoming experienced in teaching and learning; first-year teaching success; teachers' roles in preservice education; student teacher cohorts; theories of language learning and teaching; and metaphors as blueprints of thinking about…