The study reported on in this issue was conducted to examine teachers' workload and associated stress. The specifics of the study were: the hours teachers worked during a given week, the tasks which filled those hours, and whether teachers felt stressed during that week. Teachers in 58 primary and 32 secondary schools were asked to complete a…

The lack of authentic, real-world interaction practice in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom is described and discussed, and the ways in which dialogue journals answer this classroom need are detailed. A dialogue journal is an interactive, self-generated, cumulative and functional writing and reading exchange between teacher and…

By following the "steppingstone" or marker theory of dividing one's life into no more than 12 and no less than 8 significant periods, a student in a writing course can develop a brief response for each phase to articulate multiple experiences. Writing teachers can aid students in realizing that important life experiences are the stuff of…

A study investigated the extra-curricular use of French and English by 289 anglophone and ethnic minority fifth and sixth grade students in Montreal. The students were divided into three groups: (1) French sector children in regular French classes; (2) French sector children who were recent immigrants and enrolled in a 10-month familiarization…

Made up of four separate reports, this document presents comparisons and student comments for five Annenberg/CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) telecourses offered in the fall of 1984: The Brain, Mind and Behavior; The Constitution: That Delicate Balance; The Write Course; The New Literacy; and Congress: We the People. Based on evaluations…

Focusing on a two-year period, this informally written book describes the efforts of several rural elementary teachers to establish a writing center based on a unified language arts curriculum. The book relates the authors' background experiences, outlines the structure of the writing program, offers typical writing experiences and classroom…

A program is described which successfully improved writing and communication skills in adolescents with learning and behavior problems. The students, inpatients at a mental health hospital, wrote "jargon journals" on topics from a student-generated list. The journals had therapeutic as well as academic benefits. (Author/JDD)

Four activities for the French language classroom are described, including a comprehension game based on the cow's digestive system, a group journal exercise using current events, an economics vocabulary development activity, and a grammar exercise focusing on the use of determiners in news articles. (MSE)

Most of the research on motivation in education often uses measures taken outside the context of students' actual learning activities. This paper, however, maintains that students' motivation and learning are situated. Using a diary technique, this study explored how a class of high-achieving students in an Australian state high school (N = 34)…

This paper describes a teaching experiment investigating the impact of using multiple teaching strategies and innovating while teaching collaboratively. The objective of this study was to examine the use of collaboration in trying a combination of face-to-face meetings, web courseware, and interactive two-way video in a graduate course. The major…

The issue addressed in this small scale case study relates to whether teaching assistants (TA's) are being used effectively to support children with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream primary schools. The term "teaching assistant" has become an umbrella term for a variety of support staff within schools. If the research was to…

This book presents letters, a personal narrative, and a diary relating the experiences of nine women teachers who traveled from the East to teach on western frontiers before the Civil War. During 1846-56, the National Popular Education Board recruited 600 experienced teachers from New England and New York State; trained them in Hartford,…

Designed to illustrate the role of the instructor in workplace education, this paper describes the educational strategies employed in a communication and collaboration class given by an Alpena Community College (Michigan) workplace education director at a small automobile parts manufacturing plant. First, the qualities of workplace instructors are…

Volume 2 of the dialogue journal newsletter contains contributions from the editors and teachers concerning the use of dialogue journals as a means of sustained written interaction between students and teachers at all educational levels and in second language and other types of instruction. The information presented includes techniques, ideas,…

The use of mentoring and development portfolio/transcript programs for college students is considered. The development portfolio enables students to document activities they selected to achieve their development goals, and may involve journal keeping, logging of courses and activities, and individualized growth projects. Development transcripts…