This study examined the effectiveness of two factors in second language vocabulary teaching: (1) presence or absence of a text; and (2) use of a variety of explanation types. The study's context was three 9th grade and one 10th grade class of English-as-a-Second-Language students in Hong Kong. All classes were taught by different teachers. Their…

In training courses for writing tutors, an electronic mail forum is a particularly useful writing-to-learn activity because it gives tutors-in-training important experience with the collaborative intellectual processes at the heart of writing centers. In one particular class for tutors at Marquette University, Wisconsin, the assignment for the…

This study compared communication and interaction patterns in a college class in Dutch as a second language. Subjects were 16 native-English-speaking students. Two lessons, one taught using cooperative learning (CL) and one using teacher-centered instruction (TC), were videotaped and analyzed. The CL lesson consisted of a group reading game. The…

A project developed a program for improving deficient student-to-student listening skills. The targeted population consisted of 18 seventh-grade middle school students in a culturally diverse, lower middle class community in a near-western suburb of Chicago. The problem of deficient listening skills was evident through teacher observation and…

A study explored ways that three university-based and two middle-school-based teachers might begin to alter or interrupt discursive practices that have in the past permitted inequities in classroom talk about text to go unexamined and unchanged. A feminist theoretical frame guided the study's focus on gender as a lens for examining power…

A study investigated patterns of interaction in college classroom discourse involved in small group work. Specifically, it looked at two discourse sequences: Question-Answer-Comment (Q-A-C) and Question-Counter Question-Answer-Comment (Q-CQ-A-C). Instances of the latter are closely considered in the context in which they occur, and an attempt is…

Missouri's Frameworks for Curriculum Development in Mathematics acknowledges that teachers will bring the vision, ideals, and principles of the Show-Me Standards into their classrooms in exciting and innovative ways. The role of the frameworks is to provide districts with a "frame" for building curricula using the standards as a foundation. The…

A study investigated the effects on student teachers of peer responses offered through dialogue journals on English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher education. Subjects were nine students in a student teaching seminar, all involved in practicums in public high schools. Over 15 weeks, students wrote journal entries both on selected topics from…

Positing that an optimal way to make expectations and reality match may lie in helping university faculty learn about cultural traits and perceptions of their foreign students, a study used G. Hofstede's dimensions of national culture to assess cross-cultural differences in classroom interaction. The research sample was formed by 2 subsamples: 15…

The communicative language teaching approach is described, its theoretic history is reviewed, and classroom techniques are presented. The origins of the approach are found in research on the development of linguistic competence. Characteristics of the approach include: the goals of language use for communication; use of real-life communicative…

Action research is one of the more increasingly popular and innovative techniques for engaging teachers in shaping change in the classroom. The research in this monograph was conducted by teachers in classrooms in Florida and Georgia. Papers were selected from 65 action research papers written in fulfillment of one of the requirements of the…

Sharing concerns and interests of New York State educators in the improvement of literacy, this annual journal raises educational issues such as appropriate, effective instruction and assessment for all of New York's children. A central thread found in many of the articles is the importance of authenticity and inclusion. A second strand reflects…

This paper reports a study that examined the academic language of middle school social studies education, as found in textual and classroom discourse, and the instructional practices effective in guiding students to accomplish academically and socially meaningful tasks. It involved classroom-based research, analysis of textbook discourse,…

Collaboration in writing is not confined to conventional multiple authorship and peer editing, but extends across the text to include its readers. Strong support for language development comes from dialogic situations in which student writing is created as a response to some other utterance, and yet classrooms rarely support such situations. The…

Offering glimpses into an English teacher's unorthodox teaching style, this book presents the story of one woman's dedication to her energetic, unruly students and challenges teachers to find their own unique genius within personal and institutional limitations. The book discusses how the teacher (who has spent her entire career at one school)…