Describes a study which examined the literacy approach to Spanish for Native Speakers (SNS) by focusing on one SNS class. The focus was on the relationship between the teachers' and the students' perceptions of the uses for Spanish literacy and the kinds of tasks found in textbooks and assignments. (Author/SED)

An analysis of Canadian French vocabulary and an experiment in increasing the communicative ability of French learners by adding Canadian French vocabulary and rules for its use to the syllabus are reported. (MSE)

Analyzes four types of repair activity in the foreign language classroom. A distinction is made according to whether the trouble source is produced by a teacher or a learner. Findings show that different preferences for repair patterns vary with the type of classroom activity (language-centered or content-centered). (Author/SED)

Explains the keywords journal project, an assignment designed to immerse students in the study of their own language in a way that will connect their personal investigations with more formal study of language as a variable in the communication process. (EL)

Results suggest that (1) schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic families use language differently when they communicate and (2) computer analysis of conversation may be a promising diagnostic tool. (PD)

The value of Orwell's novel is not to be found in point-by-point comparison between the society it portrays and our own, but in its treatment of such important issues as the centrality of language in thought and action and the dangerous potential bureaucratic organizations have to dominate our minds. (JBM)

Describes the details of a semantic extension of the American Sign Language lexical item "stuck," as it was used during the 1981-82 school year at a U.S. high school. Sees this semantic extension as indicative of poor communication between teacher and students at the high school. (SED)

Demonstrates through a case study and a participant observation study that siblings interact about television in such a way that the form and content of their talk creates a learning context. Concludes that, despite concerns about "zombie" viewers, children are not passive, unresponsive recipients of television. (PD)

Argues that when a parent or teacher reads the same story to children several times, they begin to attend to different aspects of the story than they did on the first reading. Discusses four changes in children's responses that occur with repeated readings. (FL)

Discusses "technological tyranny" and its demeaning of language and learning. (FL)

In order to compare the foregrounding strategies of native speakers of English and advanced learners of English as a second language, 15 native speakers and 35 advanced learners produced play-by-play descriptions of the unfolding action in an animated videotape. Results show that the two groups use different strategies of foregrounding. (SED)

Focuses on the narrative function to show how children can build on another speaker's turns in conversation and can build on their own utterances as they speak. Analyzes children's dialogs and narratives to highlight the primacy of the oral language arts as they are enacted in daily conversation and play. (HTH)

Defines exploratory language as that used to explore thoughts rather than for starting already thought of ideas, then shows how three 10th-grade students profited from exploratory writing for different reasons. (FL)

Probes the way sexism is fostered by four different but related processes of communication: overgeneralization, exaggeration, metamorphical extension, and the adaptation of behavior to fit the exaggerations and metaphors that grew out of the overgeneralizations. (EL)

Describes two teacher educators' experiences while exchanging a journal of dialog on their teaching. Discusses the language functions and themes that emerged in the journals, as well as the journals' future directions. (HTH)