To furnish a curriculum guide for teachers of English as a second language, this manual explains the principles, sound and structure patterns, the vocabulary range, and the basic cultural and orientation information necessary to teach adults. To aid the teacher, such information as how adults learn, criteria for placing students by grade level,…

The conclusions and recommendations drawn from a 7-year study of the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i/t/a) made by the Reading Research Unit of London University are reported. The British research showed conclusively that traditional orthography (TO) is a major handicap for teachers and students of reading. Students taught with i/t/a made…

The Triad process, a structured form of small-group discussion, has been used in teaching freshman composition. After reading each other's first drafts, students separate into groups of three; in each group, students take the role of reader, writer, or observer. Using role descriptions provided by the teacher, the readers analyze the writers'…

In order to determine the effects of writing for different audiences and in different modes of discourse on the syntactic complexity of compositions written by sixth and tenth grade students, 240 students were asked to write in three different modes (argumentive, descriptive, and narrative) to be read by a teacher and a best friend. There was a…

Second language learning research suggests the existence of a theoretical device (a monitor) that can examine an utterance for grammaticality and appropriateness. The monitor theory gives insight into the process that native language speakers follow in learning to write their own language. The monitor can be developed consciously (learning) or…

Many students conceive of learning institutions as factories and of writing as the delivery of a predictable product. An excerpt from a typical student theme reflects the fact that much student writing is hardly more than an assemblage of cliches. Teachers can show students the stereotyped nature of typical student writing by constructing a…

This paper exemplifies and presents the rationale for notional writing materials which are currently being developed for use with advanced level ESL students. The basic assumption of these materials is that effective writing demands a clear sense of why something is being written, and for whom it is being written. The materials are organized…

The Chicanos' political experience is defined as "their thought, activity, and organization directed toward securing an equitable and meaningful allocation of values from a politico-governmental system controlled by the dominant population, the challenges to that system, as well as alternative forms of action and security taken to offset the…

This paper discusses the nature of language knowledge and the manner in which children come to acquire this knowledge. Among the topics discussed are language production and the ability to understand sentences never heard before, sentence formation, children's construction of rules, children's language creativity, language acquisition and age,…

This paper summarizes the panel discussion of teaching Chinese at the college level. The ideas of the panelists on the following subjects are reviewed: (1) textbooks, (2) dialogues as a means of instruction, (3) pattern drills, (4) the teaching of characters, and (5) the classroom situation. (PMP)

The reader-written book program at Rockford (Illinois) Public Library has been an extremely successful outreach program used to interest the disadvantaged child in library materials and services. Reader-written books are written by using the language experience approach techniques of having the child tell a story orally, recording that story on a…

In the late spring of 1972, the Chancellor's Office agreed to support a summer study to be undertaken by a committee of the California English Council, to investigate equivalency testing in the area of English and to recommend an appropriate program for use by the California State University and Colleges. This report is the result of that study:…

Since the 1974 California State University and Colleges Freshman English Equivalency Examination was a repeat of the 1973 examination, the report contained in this document should be viewed as a supplement to the 1973 report. The test was administered in May 1974 to 3,639 students with 1,036 receiving proficiency credit. Once again, it consisted…

This dissertation describes a study of the Black English Vernacular (BEV) based on 350 compositions written in the college classroom by 42 black students from working class and lower class families in a predominantly white university. The correlation between certain extralinguistic variables and over 20 linguistic variables was examined. Although…

There are many ways films, paintings, and photographs can be used in teaching freshman college composition courses. These materials illustrate such rhetorical principles as unity, use of detail, comparison, point of view, and metaphor. Similarly, popular culture such as advertisements, song lyrics, comics, newspapers, and magazines can illustrate…