Ninth grade remedial readers at a suburban Chicago high school were given a language development program which included reading while listening to tapes and lessons in syntactic manipulation. Analysis of program effects showed that students improved their ability to understand and manipulate syntactic structures. Reading did not improve markedly.…

To offset uncertainty about using the language they have to teach, nonnative teachers of English adopt either a deeply pessimistic or an aggressive attitude toward their work. The latter type is more common. These teachers would gain confidence by admitting that they are also students of the language. (Author/MSE)

A cultural awareness technique developed for eighth-grade French students involves having students put together title or section pages in their notebooks on specified topics such as French products, geography, and common symbolism. The pages are later used for class discussion and further study. (MSE)

Reviews the research literature on the teaching of writing. Lists practices and procedures that the research shows to be either helpful or of dubious value. (AEA)

To provide a rationale for textbook evaluation, a study examined the major and minor topics covered in 20 selected college-level business communication textbooks, the readability level presented for each text, and the number of schools currently using the text. (HOD)

Suggests and gives examples of how a few advanced skills and concepts are related to successful reading and writing and can be introduced in low-level ESL classes. Examples include generality-specificity distinction, relevance-irrelevance distinction, underlining and making notes, paraphrasing, and summarizing. This conceptually integrated…

Listed are classroom resources--films and filmstrips, textbooks, multimedia kits, and cassettes--for language arts. Included in each resource listing are a description of the content emphasis, organization and/or instructional method, objectives, recommendations/evaluations and, in some cases, student evaluations. (KC)

Reports the results of an investigation on institutes for elementary school teachers inservice training, based on questionnaires directed to the trainees and the educators, and on an analysis of students' work. Focuses on various aspects of French language teaching and especially on grammar and vocabulary exercises. (MES)

Aims to give the teacher a practical framework which can be used in the classroom. The analysis of the framework is based on tape recordings of classroom lessons in the teaching of English as a second language (ESL) in Germany and on observations during a project on bilingual education in Wales. (AMH)

Two studies elicited native speaker and nonnative speaker judgments regarding preferred word order of the idioms known as "freezes." The results support the notion that rules of frozen word order are psychologically real and reflect universal language rules. (Author/AM)

Discusses the value of the mystery story in the language class as a source for a variety of exercises and assignments in which students can use grammatical constructions in a natural context. (CFM)

Investigates to what extent ESL learners' syntactic errors in written communication cause comprehension breakdown. The variables considered are the omission, insertion, and wrong choice of articles and connectors. Results indicated that errors concerning connectors cause communication breakdown more often than do errors in article usage. (PMJ)

Based on experimental research, examines the relationship between American Sign Language and French Sign Language, and sociolinguistic variation in both sign languages. (AM)

Audiolingual and translation exercises are presented that were designed to correct syntax of junior high school French language students. The exercises were given to eliminate translating the present progressive and the imperfect word for word, and to develop more awareness of reflexive construction and the imperfect tense. (SW)

Phenomena are examined to support the conception that cognitive structures continue to reflect the numerous ways of apprehending the world that blend to some degree into each other. (AMH)