Focuses on acquisition of English by speakers of Jamaican Creole. Examines historical data drawn from reports from the colonial period and highlights the systemic failure of pupils to acquire English. Discusses a recent investigation of secondary schools in postcolonial Jamaica, which finds a similar cycle of underachievement among Creole…

International college students studying in North America endure substantial psychological stress in their daily lives. The nature and function of stressors in the context of international college students' subjective appraisal are discussed and analyzed using the Lazarus and Folkman's concept of stress. Recommendations for future research are…

This review of research on second-language oral testing outlines the nature of early research in interview-format proficiency testing, then reports on new directions in investigation of construct validity of interview-format and other oral skills tests through examination of examinee, interviewer, and rater performance. Research on empirically…

Presents vignettes from grade five, seven, and eight bilingual classrooms with a linguistically and culturally diverse student population, focusing on specific ways that teachers can aid students in constructing meaning in English, promote two-way communication between teacher and student and among students, foster social integration and…

Describes a faculty-development program designed to change teacher attitudes, behavior, and instruction and, thus, improve the achievement of language-minority students in two New York state secondary schools. Examines challenges to creating and maintaining school structures that promote immigrant students' success and identifies factors that lead…

Considers the metaphor of the "bridge" as it applies to Russian-language courses at the university level. The article examines broader curricular issues of technology, innovation, and outside pressures on language teaching. (22 references) (CK)

This study examined the relationship between language learning strategies and factors such as proficiency, teacher perceptions, gender, aptitude, learning style, personality, and motivation among 520 adults studying various languages at the Foreign Service Institute. It found a low but significant relationship between cognitive strategy use and…

Proposes an approach to teaching British Studies in an English Language program for foreign students at the University of Lancaster in England. Teachers use ethnographic methods to get students to become "outsiders" in their own culture as a means of teaching them how to assimilate the target culture. Course material is appended.…

Proposes a model for rural education based on the progressive practices of a rural school in Israel in the early 1900s. Desirable characteristics of rural education are organized into four innovative educational models: education for work (including agricultural education); community education; social-ideological education; and curricular autonomy…

A study with 181 beginning-level college students of French investigated the effects of sentence-level native-language (L1) translations on retention of second-language (L2) vocabulary presented in a context designed to promote inference rather than word-to-word translation. Research was conducted to address the specific design of software for…

Discusses four components of the classroom environment found to play an important role in the successful participation of children learning English as a second language. Those components are: a physical environment that is organized, inviting, and accessible; inclusion of materials and artifacts from many cultures; opportunities for community…

Compares Queensland teachers' conceptions of communicative language teaching with those held by 11 Japanese junior high school teachers of English, interviewed in 1997 as part of a s part study on the development of language teaching in Japan. (Author/VWL)

Presents an analysis of recorded weekly discussions between British student language teachers and their school-based mentors. Results found that, despite individual preferences and interpretations, all mentors supported principles related to positive classroom management, building relationships with pupils, maximum use of the target language, and…

This paper applies the findings of doctoral research undertaken in the Northern Territory. It draws on extended interviews with nine Indigenous students studying at university to produce four findings for classroom learning and teaching, one of which highlights the need to recognise Aboriginal English as a focal point of the curriculum for both…

Over the past decade, the concept of "community" has been at the center of reform in literacy education. Most literacy educators agree that community-oriented environments are critical for students' literacy learning, yet many have difficulty building these communities in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. In this article we draw upon the…