An experiment concerning Japanese college students' ability to express themselves in English to non-Japanese English-speakers is reported. Freshmen and sophomores at two Japanese four-year colleges were asked to give written English responses to six specific communicative situations. Results showed that while few of the responses were…

Based upon the hypothesis that a person's behavior is dictated by the immediate environment, a study was conducted to investigate whether student's perception of their best liked and least liked subjects was affected by their teacher's perception of the subjects they liked to teach best and felt most knowledgeable about. Participants, 47 third…

Emphasizing the importance of developing a social classroom climate, this book addresses the organization of the reading/writing classroom. Nine sections: (1) present a statement of principles based on this concept of classroom organization (J. Steinle); (2) discuss scheduling the school day as an important area of teacher planning (P. Sloan and…

This study examines natural language use in the bilingual, early childhood classroom in the context of: (1) functional patterns of requests and turn allocators used by Spanish-speaking children; (2) formal patterns of requests and turn allocators used by Spanish-speaking children; (3) the use of language alternation to make requests and allocate…

A study examined the language use of two teachers, one a native, bilingual Cantonese-English speaker and the other a monolingual English-speaker, as they alternated teaching assignments between two first grade classes in a Chinese-English bilingual education program. Teacher-student interaction and the variation in teacher and student language use…

A sensitive topic can be used effectively in a class of English as a second language (ESL) if planned carefully. While there are the risks that non-native students will become embarrassed and withdrawn, or will develop negative feelings about American society, there are ways to minimize those risks. This can be done by considering the…

The Queensland (Australia) Board of Teacher Education lets research grants for work in the area of teacher education. As projects are completed, the Board periodically publishes summaries of the project reports. This volume, number three in the series, describes six research studies, as follows: "Student Teacher Stress in Field Studies"…

This paper argues that two serious flaws are present in current mathematics learning and instruction: (1) the lack of meaning in students' mathematical knowledge; and (2) students' inability to communicate using appropriate mathematical language and ideas. The study explored the relationship between mathematics language facility and mathematics…

Numerous research studies indicate that vocational classrooms are subject to "negotiations" between students and teachers that have negative implications for instruction and learning. These negotiations can range from students offering nondisruptive behavior in exchange for a relaxation of academic standards to students offering certain…

A wide variety of second language teaching techniques reflecting the communicative approach are presented and discussed, with examples illustrating good practice in a communicatively oriented classroom drawn from recently published teaching materials. Most illustrations are for English language instruction because of the availability of suitable…

To analyze and compare specific oral communication behaviors of primary school pupils who score high on reading and language tests with those who score low, a study was conducted on approximatley 200 students who were classified as (1) high language, (2) high reading, (3) low language, or (4) low reading according to their scores on the…

This study was conducted to identify problems teachers face in using English as the language of instruction in the early grades of Zambian primary school, and to investigate the difficulties young pupils meet because of learning through English rather than through their mother tongue. The first chapter sets forth the historical background of the…

Data gathered from 42 secondary school speech communication teachers and their students formed the foundation for a study that examined the relationship between: (1) differential use of Behavior Alteration Techniques (BATs) by teachers trained or untrained in communication in instruction and (2) learning of students of varying quality levels.…

It is proposed that the main emphasis in second language instruction continues to be on linguistic form rather than on meaning or content. In a review of literature, arguments are reiterated supporting the idea that meaning can be transmitted without having all the linguistic means of the target language at one's disposal. These arguments submit…

An ethnographic study examined the role of language in an economics classroom. The researcher became an undergraduate economics student for one semester and concluded that the language practices in that economics classroom were represented neither by the transmission model nor the process approach to writing. The most valuable part of this…