Self-assessment offers an important element for programs seeking to serve adult learners and is a key principle of the School for New Learning, DePaul University. Four strategies to develop self-assessment skills are discussed: storytelling, development of standards, dialogue, and inquiry. (MLW)

The structure of a course designed to teach oral communicative competence is outlined, and the approach to evaluation is discussed. Evaluation includes both a criterion test and a specific oral task that students must accomplish. (MSE)

The expository writing difficulties of exceptional students are examined in relationship to the writing process, expository text structures, and students' metacognitive knowledge. Approaches to the teaching of expository writing are discussed, and a dialogic approach, involving teacher modeling and a series of think sheets, is described.…

Examines two metaphors of teaching and learning--dominant metaphor of transmission, and competing metaphor of dialogue--and their impact on improvement of teaching and learning (ITL). It is suggested there is a shift from the dominant to the competing metaphor and implications on future ITL research and practice are considered. (MBR)

This book provides educators who mentor novice teachers an opportunity to increase their awareness of the skills that are needed to mentor. Through the use of specific examples and role plays, teachers can learn how to work effectively with inexperienced teachers. The book helps mentors develop ways to interact positively with novice teachers and…

The purpose of this article is to suggest ways which will prevent students from responding automatically when they are working in the language laboratory." Suggestions for drills are made and sample drills are presented. (FB)

Discusses the value of dialog, and presents criteria it must meet if it is to be useful in creating communicative skills. Cites a dialog from the school radio series "Let's Talk in English," and states conditions for its adoption in the seventh grade. Describes, in detail, a class hour. (IFS/WGA)

Gives the format of a listening exercise in which students perform two tasks while listening to a dialog: they answer 15 true-false questions and they label the rooms of a house on a plan provided. The dialog was selected for naturalness, predictability, and distribution of reference words. (PJM)

Presents a language teaching method designed to increase communicative competence through an application of speech act theory and the use of dialogs and the source language. (AM)

To help close the gap between imitation of models and free expression, exercises are suggested, based on micro-dialogues with picture stories. Examples for pair and group work are given. (IFS/WGA)

Explores the importance of dialog for education and for educational facilitation. The facilitation process is framed on person-to-person dialog that produces an encounter with the experiences and ideas of the student, but dialog in a larger sense is apparent in the operation of the colloquium at Boricua College, New York (New York). (SLD)

Dialogue writing samples from 54 sixth grade students in three classrooms were compared with standard narratives written by the same subjects. Results show that children wrote longer stories and enjoyed the sessions more when writing dialogue. Children's reading levels and academic motivation had no affect on this result. (TJH)

This paper investigates the development of interactive communication skills in 170 children aged 7 to 13. Results indicate that the development of interactive communication skills is rather different from the process of language acquisition both in the extended timescale involved and in the considerable variability exhibited by speakers of…

Describes a discourse created by second graders who were deliberating about important social issues in the course of discussing a story. (BB)

Reviews the evolution of foreign language teaching methods from the audiovisual methods of the 60s through the notional-functional and communicative approaches of the 70s and 80s. It is recommended that the role of oral language be reviewed and that the value of writing in second language learning be recognized. (JLR)