A culturally-based approach to learning adopted by many Japanese students is hypothesized, and it is proposed that while it is effective in many areas of learning, it may hinder second language learning. Japan's politico-economic structures, geared toward efficiently manufacturing competent workers, encourages a psychology of procedure that tends…

A discussion of the ease or difficulty of learning vocabulary words in a second language looks at a variety of issues in second language instruction. Research on factors in vocabulary learning is discussed, focusing on such factors as similarity in form and morphology, deceptive morphological structure, different syntactic patterning in the native…

While word discrimination studies based on the subjects' conscious manipulation of words--for example, counting the number of words in a line--indicate that beginning readers are unskilled in identifying word boundaries, tests using such indirect methods of assessment as word recognition reveal a strong correlation between the ability to…

This workbook is one of a series that provides students with examples of location skills, organizational skills, interpretation skills, retention skills, test-taking skills, rate skills, and study strategies. Location skills include locating general reference sources and reviewing the card catalog system and the Dewey decimal system.…

Teaching Spanish while either restricting classroom use of the textbook or ignoring application of the computer is a losing proposition. Withdrawn from the typographic-video world that engages them daily, students are deprived of their most comfortable means of knowledge acquisition. Typography and visual images can be an immeasurable aid in…

Four problems in children's paired-associate memory were addressed: (1) reappraisal of the presumed developmental trend in presentation mode effect during grade-school years, (2) identification of the locus of this developmental effect, (3) evaluation of the influence of combined presentation (verbal plus pictorial) relative to pictorial…

A major goal of the elementary and secondary schools is to help each person become an efficient and autonomous learner. Outlined in this report are skills abstracted from the literature on such topics as verbal learning, problem solving, study habits, and behavior modification. The learner-oriented skills are presented so that they may be…

This curriculum guide is intended to introduce elementary school students to the reading and writing of poetry. Poems by recognized poets make up the bulk of the selections in the guide, but some poems by elementary school students are also included. The writers hope that the teacher will use the guide to encourage students to write their own…

Attempts to distinguish the role of the structure of a message in determining the different modalities of decodification and memorization in oral discourse based on the theories and experiments of Ragnar Rommetveit of the Oslo School. (CFM)

Anecdotal evidence tells us that certain L2 linguistic features are more difficult to learn than others. For post critical period English-as-a-foreign-language Japanese learners, English articles ([zero or null], "some," "a(n)," and "the") are notoriously difficult grammatical features. After providing the reasons why…

In this essay, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) deplores the effects of the classical education of his time on students who memorized without understanding and on teachers who tended toward pedantry. Interchange editors noted that "many of his criticisms of scholars and schooling have a contemporary ring...." (PP)

A method is provided for teaching reading comprehension of scientific or technical texts in a foreign language. The method involves analyzing language patterns and using some memorization for terminology. (MSE)

Two experiments on children's inferences and associative memory provided a supportive test of fuzzy-trace theory. Results indicated that false recognition of associated instances with delay declined for all children, and categorical inferences increased for older children. Verbatim memory and inferences were uncorrelated under short delay but…

Extensive research and practical experience demonstrate that learning to read comes less naturally than learning to speak. Although half of all children intuit the alphabetic system from exposure to print and context-driven activities, many (particularly dyslexic, low-socioeconomic, and second-language kids) need an organized program that teaches…

Reports the findings of 2 surveys given to students and teachers at 4 schools of Pepperdine University (California) that substantiate the importance of name recognition and social interaction between instructors and students. Lists techniques teachers use to remember names. Introduces Names, a 12-option computer program, designed to assist in name…