This presentation, intended to help English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instructors, covers the following areas: (1) classifying and selecting students for the program, (2) making a needs assessment of material to be taught, (3) setting up a language support program, (4) developing appropriate materials for a preparation class and a language…

A study to determine whether college students in first-, second-, and third-year Spanish courses who saw and heard dialogs between native speakers would score significantly higher on a listening comprehension test than those who only heard the dialogs had as its subjects 178 students randomly divided into two treatment groups. Twenty-seven…

A dialogue journal is a series of collaborative, ongoing reflections between a teacher and a student, interacting in a forum of written, informal "conversation". Used at all levels ranging from K-12 to post-graduate contexts and in disciplines such as language, history, biology, mathematics, and teacher education, dialogue journals have…

A pragmatic approach to second language instruction sees the text as a source of content which can be used in a variety of ways; the method is a teacher's decision. As the teacher assumes more of the decision-making role, the textbook becomes the framework on which the course can be built. Techniques for adaptation are given and case studies are…

This handbook presents a variety of different social and cultural situations in which the Peace Corps volunteer is likely to be involved in Tanzania. It establishes classroom activities that require the students to exchange messages in a way that is appropriate to the context. Generally, new vocabulary and language structures are introduced in the…

Describes material used in a single (seventh grade) class hour in English. The material consisted of a dialog, based on a previously studied unit and designed to introduce a particular structure. The successive phases of the procedure are described. (IFS/WGA)

A language classroom exercise uses a comic strip in which the conversations are erased to elicit student observations about the actions and interactions of the characters. (MSE)

A collaborative effort of French and West German radio produced a series of programs providing French language instruction and practice. The programs consist of dialogues, exercises, civilization, and an authentic cultural document. (MSE)

Discusses the differing points of view of foreign language teaching research and second language acquisition research. The article shows that second language acquisition research works with linguistic data as a product of output, while foreign language teaching research, in addition, tries to interpret classroom data by taking into account the…

The organization of a practicum class in oral English for training M.A. students in the EFL/ESL program at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale is described. The needs and problems of both foreign students and student teachers are discussed, multiple-variant dialogue-alternatives are suggested. Teaching sessions are filmed on video tape. (CHK)

Reading research continues to identify phonemic awareness and knowledge of the alphabetic principle as key factors in the literacy acquisition process and to indicate that they greatly facilitate decoding efforts. While research indicates that phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge are necessary to literacy acquisition, many early childhood…

A research project identified the challenges and benefits of collaborative research between extension agents and researchers. Its methodology was a critical review of the collaborative research approach used in a case study examining the usefulness of social capital in promoting rural landscape sustainability in two counties in the Hudson River…

Discusses lack of authenticity of dialogs provided in most foreign language courses for students' listening comprehension practice and imitation. Explores the difficulties involved in obtaining authentic material for use at the elementary levels and proposes role playing as a technique for the preparation of dialogs by teachers and course…

The conversations of 12 preschool stutterers with their mother, father, and a familiar peer were analyzed. Subjects' verbal interactive patterns did not really differ with various partners. Although some children were variable in fluency failures with different partners, the partner's verbal contribution was not associated with predictable changes…

Maintains that preschool teachers can encourage meaningful dialogue and enhance learning among young children by asking appropriate questions, using fewer "known-answer" and testing questions, being sensitive to cultural differences, and creating an environment in which the educational goal is conversational equality between teachers and…