Contemporary education theory (and official South African policy) underwrites learner-centredness. I analyse learner-centredness as a possible piece of the puzzle about why it is proving so difficult to improve academic achievement. Learner-centred ideas are grounded in the belief that cognitive abilities develop spontaneously in accordance with a…

The Whole Language (WL) approach is sweeping across classrooms in the United States, bringing with it motivating and innovative ways to teach language arts skills to primary school children. With its emphasis on individual discovery, language as a social activity, and diverse "literacy events," the approach employs many techniques that are used in…

A preschool teacher of children who are deaf or hard of hearing describes her classroom program, which provides children with opportunities to make choices; encourages whole language learning through theme cycles; teaches by means of learning centers, dramatic play, and science investigations; and reinforces the day's activities through use of a…

This paper describes an approach to using science activities as a means to teach English in the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classroom. It is based on the author's work in Preparing Refugees for Elementary Programs (PREP) at the Philippine Refugee Processing Center. Refugee children from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, ages 6 to 12, attend…

An inquiry-based curriculum can become the vehicle for bringing students out into the community and bringing the larger world to the classroom. The article describes one Hawaiian teacher's elementary curriculum that encouraged talking, sharing, and collaboration and incorporated reading and writing for real purposes into the curriculum. (SM)