One of a series of workplace education modules, this module includes activities and exercises for teaching communication skills in the workplace. First, introductory material reviews the goals of the module and defines three levels of difficulty of module activities (i.e., beginner, intermediate, and advanced). The importance of communication…

Intended for use in Florida training programs for caregivers of infants and toddlers with disabilities, this guide presents an overview of the Model of Interdisciplinary Training for Children with Handicaps (MITCH); a user's guide to the series; and specific information for presenting Module 5, which focuses on the development of listening skills…

This publication contains reports on eight research studies proposed, developed, and conducted by special education teachers in their own classrooms. The projects are: "Chapter 1 and Special Education Working Together To Activate Students' Participation in Applying Math through the Use of Technology" (Megan Haynes Blancett and Carol…

Effects of working with the deep comprehension and decoding activities supported by the software created by Brophy and colleagues to enhance literacy skills in young, at-risk children were studied. Subjects were 53 at-risk kindergartners from a public inner-city school (24 in the control group and 29 in the experimental group). The experimental…

Based on the idea that questioning designed to elicit and practice different language structures can promote language development, 10 questioning techniques are presented. They are designed to be used in the context of the whole language approach to instruction, to promote both language and thinking skills. The techniques are to be used as parents…

As part of a series of documents on assessment of student learning in various school curriculum areas, this report describes assessment of student learning in the foreign language classroom in South Carolina. The report begins with an overview of current curriculum goals in foreign language education and the status of assessment practices in this…

The guide offers over 100 classroom activities and techniques for teaching English as a second language to adults, all provided by experienced teachers who have found them useful. They are divided into ten categories: (1) activities using materials or techniques from radio, television, and print news media; (2) exercises for teaching English for…

By offering children the opportunity to speak up in the classroom, educators help build a vital foundation in open-mindedness that is essential for critical thinking. Teaching children to be critical thinkers requires that teachers listen to what children say, encourage them to talk, and not insist that they share the teacher's beliefs. Young…

A study of interlanguage comprehension, part of a larger project by the Gothenburg research group, investigated the telephone conversations between advanced learners and native speakers of Swedish. In four of the eight conversations, the non-native speakers called the public library to get information on how to borrow books; in the other four the…

The instructional materials for introductory instruction in Haitian Creole are designed for use with the Total Physical Response method of second language teaching, with priority placed on listening comprehension before production and on internalization of physical activities during use of the language. The text consists of 24 chapters targeting…

This report describes a National Workplace Literacy Demonstration project that provided onsite training at participating New Mexico hospitals in job-specific literacy skills necessary for satisfactory job performance. Six courses were offered that integrated language skills with reading, writing, and speaking components--Straight Talk:…

Noting that parents are their children's first and most important teachers, this digest provides suggestions and recommends resources to help parents become involved in their children's literacy development. The digest discusses visiting the public library; reading aloud and modeling reading; playing with children; listening to children read;…

A collection of classroom activities for teaching listening and speaking skills in English as a Second Language (ESL) is presented. They are designed to be accompanied by a tape (not included here). All were developed by teachers and have been used successfully in ESL classrooms. Topics and skill areas addressed in the games and exercises include:…

The set of materials for development of listening skills in Czech is designed for students with advanced language proficiency and is intended to be used with cassette tapes (not included here) to supplement other instructional materials. It consists of 20 units grouped into 2 levels (advanced and advanced plus). At each level there are 10 units,…

A study examined the transition from dependent writing (dictation) to independent writing for 40 first grade students. Specifically, the study investigated (1) how, in terms of common quantitative language units (mean words per t-unit, mean number of dependent clauses, words per maze, mean number of dependent clauses per t-unit, and length in…