When creative uses of spoken language have been investigated, the main examples have been restricted to particular contexts such as narrative and related story-telling genres. This paper reports on an initial investigation using the 5 million word CANCODE corpus of everyday spoken English and discusses a range of social contexts in which creative…

Using a method of topical rhetorical analysis, inspired by K. Burke, to discuss the Ebonics debate, this article demonstrates that conversations about education, particularly writing instruction, have adopted a market rhetoric that limits teachers' agency. However, reappropriation of this market rhetoric can help writing teachers to imagine and…

We examined the effects of intensive tact instruction on emission of audience-accurate verbalizations of 2 middle school students using a delayed multiple baseline design across participants. Dependent variables were accurate and inaccurate audience controlled tacts and conversational units during non-instructional times. Following baselines,…

This paper is the result of my inquiry into the nature of my constructivist pedagogy in the context of a postgraduate course that focused on theoretical and practical dimensions of mentoring at a major university in the north of Israel. Drawing on four critical incidents in my university teaching, I address the question: What happens when you…

This study focuses on the utilization of different Jewish languages by student-teachers in a two year teacher education program. The study examined the Jewish language used by these students while teaching Jewish content, making the distinction between their personal Jewish language and the cultural Jewish language of the program, which they were…

This article argues for the use of teacher-generated corpora in content-based courses. Using a content course for engineering and architecture students as an example, the article explains how a corpus consisting of texts from textbooks and journal articles helped students learn grammar, vocabulary, and writing. The article explains how the corpus…

This paper examines the use of simplification in second language instruction. It argues that although simplification is a necessary process in coping with the conceptual and experiential chaos of the classroom, it is a potentially dangerous process that risks creating categories that become too insensitive to cope with changing audiences and…

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using the mother tongue in foreign language instruction, specifically in the explanation phase, in exercises and drills, in testing, and in the presentation of new grammar. (CLK)

Four experiments were conducted to determine how the keyword method of vocabulary instruction affects both subjects' comprehension of words encountered in sentences (experiments 1 and 2), and their ability to use words in appropriate sentences (experiments 3 and 4). In the first two experiments, college students were presented sentences containing…

This annotated bibliography contains 28 references to articles in the ERIC database about interpersonal communication. It contains citations from the period between 1987 and 1989 and is divided into three sections. The first section presents several citations for instructional strategies in the area of interpersonal communications. The second…

Storytelling has long been a part of our culture, and teachers should recognize its value as a pedagogical tool. The Word Weaving program, an experimental storytelling program, includes folk tales, literary tales, adaptations, and original and true stories from the teller. In it, all stories are simply told to a class without a book in evidence.…

High school and college writing assignments encourage students to avoid every sense of purposeful self-involvement by directing all their attention to the world or to others. Perhaps teachers need to be reminded that, unless they give students the opportunity and occasion to focus on instrumental relationships between the world, other people and…

A review of literature on communicative competence reveals many meanings of the concept and of the way it should be used in second and foreign language instruction. In the literature there are two views: that communicative competence includes grammatical competence, and that it does not; or at least the ability to communicate one's meaning is…

The 53 teaching strategies accompanying the 10 performance objectives in this guide for grades kindergarten through 12 focus on specific kinds of oral language. Each of the objectives is designed so that after the completion of the program students will be able to (1) use appropriate levels of language for given situations; (2) present both…

This volume includes 16 articles on selected research and pedagogical issues related to the gender variable in communication and language. Also presented are two sample syllabi for teaching male/female communication courses, and a summary statement resulting from conference participants' discussion of issues and directions for future instruction…