Recent research on principles of best practice for designing effective multimedia instruction has rarely taken into account students' alternative conceptions, which are known to strongly influence learning. The goal of this study was to determine how well students of quantum mechanics could learn "vicariously" by watching a student-tutor dialogue…

This study compares pauses, repetitions and recasts in matched task interactions under face-to-face and computer-mediated conditions. Six first-year English undergraduates at a Turkish University took part in Skype-based voice chat with a native speaker and face-to-face with their instructor. Preliminary quantitative analysis of transcripts showed…

English idioms are catalogued for German speakers. The guide is designed to be used both as a reference and as a teaching tool. It is divided into sections, each listing and defining common idioms using a number of English verbs, then presenting them in the context of dialogues. Most sections contain idioms for six or seven more common verbs, then…

From the beginning of life, a child's acts of meaning are joint constructions, enacted through dialogue between himself and a significant other by reference to whom he is achieving a personal identity. When the child begins to control his material environment, he begins the transition to systematic symbolic construction. At the same time, he is…

Guidelines and examples for using dramatization to teach elementary German are presented. Dramatization can be used productively as an aid to learning even at the very beginning of a course or in an academic environment that is hostile to innovation. In order to learn an utterance in a foreign language, the students must be able to project their…

This volume of a publication devoted to providing ideas and guidance for teachers of English as a second language includes articles on teaching communication and syntax and on using games, cloze procedure, and dialogs in the classroom. (MMN)

Discusses the news programs of "Landesbildstelle Berlin," as providing dialog material useful for the language classroom. The dialogs deal with news, rather than simply providing examples of language structures. Discusses also difficulties of using dialogs in the laboratory. Examples and hints for application are given. (Text is in…

Indicates a periodic structure in the distribution of between-turn silences in two-party conversation, a finding that is inconsistent with current stochastic or signaling models, which view social interaction as an exchange of stimuli and responses. Finds that social interaction is fundamentally a collaborative activity. (JD)

In a study of the effects of modeling on the abilities of learning disabled (LD) and nondisabled boys, grades two to eight, to interview classmates, a dialog model increased LD children's production of open-ended questions and comments. Results suggest LD children are aware of their difficulties in conversational interaction. (MSE)

Focusing on "interpreting speaker/hearers" as a method to show how classroom discourse facilitates or fetters education, the author suggests that the key issue is the type of elicitation a question might apprear to be to students. (MD)

The article points out the most frequently occurring problems in pragmatic functions of children's language, reviews considerations in taking and analyzing spontaneous language samples, and provides a summary of a dialog sample. (Author/CL)

Explores how dialog writing, in which two participants "converse in writing," incorporates the interactive aspects of oral communication and the self-directed aspects of essay writing. Includes passages written over a year's time by a sixth grade student in a "dialogue journal" showing the development of his writing. (HTH)

Dialogue learning as a tool in teaching conversational skills to lower-level language students is discussed. The use of an outline of the day's dialogue to assist the student to learn the material without complete memorization is recommended. (Author/RM)

This paper focuses on how teachers guide construction of knowledge in classrooms. We suggest that guidance hinges on the kind of dialogue teachers choose to engage students in. We propose several classroom dialogue types relevant for the construction of knowledge and suggest that critical dialogue is particularly effective for knowledge…

A teaching method is described and illustrated that begins with the presentation of a basic dialogue containing new learning material and progresses to the group's acting out its own dialogues and discussing them with the class. The objective is to lead learners from understanding new material to using it creatively and, ultimately, for their own…