The expansion of foreign investments in the United States prompted Eastern Michigan University to develop a new curriculum in business French. The program leads to a major in business French and to the Diploma of Commercial French offered by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris. (SW)

The literature on effective instruction for difficult-to-teach students is reviewed. Preinstructional variables include classroom management planning and planning for instructional tasks (student assessments, communication of learning goals, pacing decisions, and time allocations). Instructional delivery variables include engagement time, success…

A study of undergraduate students investigated whether different rehearsal strategies are more effective in facilitating achievement, whether certain rehearsal strategies require learners to spend more time interacting with instructional content, and whether verbal or visual testing requires students to spend more time processing and responding to…

Describes the third in a series of studies investigating effects of psychological variable of encoding specificity on cognitive learning, test design, and visualization during instruction and testing. Encoding specificity, its application to classroom learning and testing, and its significance to educational technology are explained. The first two…

Analysis of instructional strategies associated with interaction-based teaching in a graduate course in higher education pinpoints critical incidents in the course's unfolding and resolution of testing, grading, and evaluation problems and their resolution. Teachers must be ready to share course control and leadership with the students. (MSE)

Northeast Missouri State University has developed a way of knowing its effectiveness through a method of assessment that focuses on the value added to the student's knowledge and personality. Competency testing and attitudinal assessment are used. The effects on curriculum and instruction are outlined. (MLW)

A curriculum project to help dental students identify, reason about, and resolve ethical problems applied moral development theory to professional education, an approach not previously used. The project involved testing student attitudes and abilities and developing learning activities to promote the desired abilities. (Author/MSE)

Survey results concerning each state's procedures for music teacher certification are examined; future directions for certification are discussed. Testing and evaluation of teaching will become an integral part of future certification practices. Additional methods for improving educational quality, e.g., field experiences before student teaching…

In early January 2003, "Education Week" released a new report on the status of teaching in the United States and concluded that many states are taking steps to recruit and retain skilled teachers, but few efforts focus on the schools where these teachers are needed most. Drawing upon a large national database, "Quality Counts…

This journal, which deals with topics in educational research, includes articles written in Spanish (translated here) such as the following: "Management of the Competence of Professional Action (CAP)]" (Benito Echeverria Samanes); "Concepts and Beliefs of Andalusian Secondary School Teachers on Mathematics Assessments"…

The Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) was part of a project examining biographical, motivational, attitudinal, personality, and cognitive aptitude variables in 1,000 adult students preparing at the Foreign Service Institute for overseas assignments, with various subsamples completing different instruments. Data were analyzed using correlation,…

The process of designing and validating a test of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) speaking skills is described. The study examined: (1) whether nine traits (pronunciation, grammar, discourse, fluency, content, vocabulary, comprehensibility, interactional competence, sociolinguistic competence) are relevant and separable parts of speaking…

To find ways to improve rater reliability of a tape-mediated speaking test for Japanese university students of English as a Second Language, two studies gathered information on: how raters actually made their choices on rating sheets of students' speaking ability; determined what criteria teachers think they use and actually use in rating…

The effects of classroom assessment environment (CAE) variables on yearly achievement in mathematics and science in grades 7 through 12 were studied through the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY), using cohorts of approximately 3,000 students each in the 7th and 10th grades who were followed for 4 years. While the LSAY did not include all…

This document discusses a test devised for a university level English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) course that tests students' conversational ability. The test has been used successfully in a Japanese university English communication class over three years. Learning not only to speak but to listen and respond appropriately to others is also an…