An essay compares Japanese and American language, reflecting on the fundamental culture-based differences between methods of communication in Japan and the United States. Japanese and Americans have different systems of logic and thought, attitudes, and ways of expressing themselves, all of which are affected by their respective background…

Teachers of Arabic, German, Japanese, and Korean at the Defense Language Institute describe classroom activities that have proven effective in preparing their adult, military language students for contact with another culture. Cultural awareness and understanding of the culture's sociolinguistic features are emphasized because of their importance…

A university professor and director of a writing program found many examples of what he terms "colonialism" during his thirty years of teaching experiences in countries around the world. One such example was a former pupil in Hong Kong struggling to make her students memorize a poem called "London Snow" ("snow" is an…

A student-centered, cross-disciplinary approach was developed to teach English language skills to first-year architecture students at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology. The course addressed the problem of native architecture students' lack of training in oral skills and lack of experience in expressing familiar architectural concepts…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 18 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) ways of conceptualizing and evaluating group discussion; (2) participant observations of communication themes in families facing death; (3) perceptions of…

The construction of an intermediate course in Mandarin Chinese for business purposes is discussed. Following an introduction in part one, part two considers the progress of trade relations between Taiwan, the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the United States. Part three gives a brief review of materials already in print that might help in…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 14 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effect of dialect variation on second grade students' perception of phoneme-grapheme correspondence; (2) communication rules and perceived outcomes within…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 14 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the influence of black nonstandard English on how a person is perceived, (2) Navajo language maintenance and shift, (3) the relationship of the syntactical…

Intended to promote mutual understanding and communication between Colombia and the United States, this lexicon shows how the two countries differ in their perceptions and evaluations of dominant themes and issues. The associative group analysis method was used in the study. One hundred American and 100 Colombian undergraduate students were…

This paper describes the experiences gathered in a Masters of Adult Education course at University of Botswana (UB), where 26 students of the University of Botswana and the University of Georgia (UGA) engaged in discussions within the University of Botswana Learning Management System WebCT. Individual participation patterns in the discussions…

This collection of papers shows how intercultural competence can be realized in the classroom. The 17 chapters include the following: (1) "The International Partnership Project" (Carol Morgan); (2) "Teaching Intercultural Communicative Competence through Literature" (Eva Burwitz-Melzer); (3) "'Up the Hills of…

The text presents an introduction to sociolinguistics for second language teachers, focusing on social dimensions of language likely to be of interest to this group. The first group of chapters addresses the manner in which the larger social and political context affects language broadly: "Language Attitudes, Motivation, and Standards" (Mary…

This report describes a three-year project to establish and staff a new office at Colgate University (New York), the Office of Intercultural Resources (OIR), to originate and implement programs to build bridges between Colgate's intercultural and multicultural programs. OIR staff worked with students who studied abroad, international students,…

Canada's public schools are essential public goods resources. For children to benefit, parents cooperate in efforts to support and enhance their children's education. In today's multicultural communities, parents have an increasingly complex mix of expectations, cultural beliefs, values, and assumptions regarding educational systems. Differing…

These two publications fill the need of newly posted Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) for self-directed learning activities to aid the community entry process. A volunteer's guide provides a way to learn about biophysical, economic, and social aspects of the host community during the first few months of service. It has ideas and activities for…