To test how to achieve a reliable score on an essay test, based on judgments of specific criteria such as grammatical accuracy or topic relevance, a workshop was conducted on interrater reliability at a teacher educators conference in South Africa. Experienced English teacher educators assessed two essay protocols. Results showed substantial…

Describes an exploratory study that investigated the effects of explicit instruction in revision on learners' performance and perceptions about writing. Learners were from a secondary school in Hong Kong. Indicates that explicit teaching of revision strategies has a measurable influence on writing performance. (Author/VWL)

Discusses growing enrollments in foreign languages at Spelman College, a small language arts college for African American women in Atlanta, Georgia. Attributes the growing enrollments to the willingness of faculty to attend to student needs, interests, and specific black heritage. Suggests strategies for attracting students of color to languages…

Presents findings relating to a study on pupils' perceptions of the in-school foreign language learning experience. The study is part of a longitudinal study on the motivational perspectives of secondary pupils learning German. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the English literacy development of Cambodian adults in the United States. Describes how Cambodian adults, literate in Khmer, participate in each other's English literacy development; how Cambodian children, fluent but not literate in Khmer participate in their parents' English literacy development; and how a Cambodian teacher…

Examines the performance of Hungarian secondary school students on two types of unscripted tasks--an argument task and a narrative task. Focuses on grammatical patterns of learner language, and reports significant differences in the learners' performance. (Author/VWL)

A descriptive case study provides a comprehensive profile of 13 learning disabled students' experience after one full year in a French immersion learning difficulties program in Canada. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the potential for stories in the foreign language curriculum, and presents results of a qualitative research study in which 22 stories from the oral traditions of Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico were presented to students in different formats: picture books, audiotapes, videotapes, a Web page, and a Hypermedia program. (Author/VWL)

Compared the English and French reading comprehension and inferencing skills of U.S. college students enrolled in an introductory French literature course. Participants each read two different texts--one in English and the other in French--by the same 18th century author, recalled them in writing, and did a multiple choice task on selected…

Examines the role of literature in the acquisition of literacy in English as a Second Language and Nigerian mother tongues. Provides a critique of the Nigerian literacy instruction model, and discusses how to help students acquire effective and efficient literacy. (Author/VWL)

Uses an attitude/motivation battery and matched-guise procedure to examine Kazak, Uygur, and Yi subject's ratings of Putonghua (PTH) and Chinese ethnic minority nationality (EMN) languages and 12 variables in PTH learning. Shows among other things that integrative orientation of Beijing people are the best predictors of EMN's instrumental…

Argues that research in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) needs to give more attention to contextual factors that exert significant and profound effects on the introduction of technology into language learning. Three contextual factors are highlighted the rate of technological innovation and change; the uneven introduction of technology…

Describes an experiment in the United Kingdom that brought together GCSE modern languages examination candidates and preservice language teachers via video conferencing, thus providing both groups with more practice in oral language. The article suggests that the use of video conferencing may be beneficial to all parties concerned, given the…

Mailed surveys investigated modern foreign language inservice provisions offered by English and Welsh local education authorities since the introduction of the national curriculum, comparing this analysis with expressed inservice needs of secondary school department heads. Teachers' choice of inservice course content was primarily in response to…

Attempts to clarify relationship between metacognition and English-as-a-Second-Language writing performance by posing the following questions: (1) Does each component of the metacognitive model--personal, task, and strategy--have an equivalent effect upon writing performance of ESL students?; (2) Do these three components impact performance…