Reports on the speech difficulties of four French immersion anglophone students participating in a three-month interlinguistic exchange. Each student was interviewed three times, and the transcripts were analyzed for linguistic, sociolinguistic, and sociocultural errors in oral French and for performance evaluation by the students. (51 references)…

Focus groups, consisting of a total of 17 female student interns in social work, elicited student statements about their entrance into the social work profession, their own family and culture, and emotional exchanges between student and client. Students' diverse cultural backgrounds influenced their views of professionalism, engagement, and…

Examines the social context of schooling of a cohort of 115 black males attending an urban high school between 1986 and 1989. The article draws on chaos theory to explore the systematic methods of avoidance schooling behaviors invoked by these students. It shows how school actions, policies, and procedures resulted in poor academic preparation and…

Presents the results of a research project involving language teachers in Italy, their use of the target language (TL) and its interrelationship with collaborative and independent learning. The investigation was conducted by asking 21 Italian teachers of English to fill in a questionnaire concerning their beliefs regarding classroom use of TL. (15…

Discusses student criticism of higher education. Responds in the context of moral questions. Argues that education is about the development of a moral imagination. Suggests that students be encouraged to locate their own questions in material to be studied. Concludes that through storytelling teachers and students can find common ground as well as…

Describes the physical and linguistic structure of subcommunities of Hmong students in northern California with emphasis on communicative channeling and cultural mechanisms regulating information dissemination. Hmong students and their teachers use cultural/linguistic brokers extensively to communicate. (nine references) (Author/CK)

Discusses evaluation criteria for selecting courseware that teaches basic concepts appropriate for preschool and early elementary students. Reviews of the software manual, the courseware itself, and reviews by students are suggested. Other areas of concern that are addressed include instructional quality, production quality, flexibility, and cost.…

No differences are found in scientific hypothesis formulation ability of 36 male and 50 female gifted ninth graders, but investigation of related variables indicates that hypothesis formulation may be independent of intelligence for high-ability students. A positive relationship also exists between quality and quantity of student responses. (SLD)

The effectiveness of students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness (SETs) as a means of enhancing university teaching was evaluated using the self-evaluations of 92 teachers and their students' evaluations using the Students' Evaluations of Educational Quality instrument. Results support the effectiveness of SET feedback in improving teaching.…

The Appalshop School Initiative is a joint research project between eastern Kentucky teachers using the Foxfire instructional approach and a media arts and education center. Teachers use Appalshop's documentaries about central Appalachia as part of an educational strategy to challenge students to interpret their own environment, culture, and…

Discusses the effect of a teacher's expectations about a class and individuals in the class on his or her body language and style of interacting with students. Effects on students' self-expectations, self-concepts, and achievement are also considered. Presents a Five-Finger Rule designed to help teachers foster positive interactions with students.…

Two studies of three youths (ages 12-14) with severe mental retardation, who used aggression and self-injury to avoid difficult instructional situations, found that simple commands interspersed among more challenging instructional trials were effective at increasing the learners' responsiveness to instructions and decreasing levels of problem…

Junior high school students with deafness explored their feelings about having someone with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) enroll at their special school and then wrote about what their reaction and the reaction of the staff, parents, and other students would be. Students seemed to become more compassionate and understanding toward…

Describes the use of concept mapping in teaching complex notions in urban geography. Discusses the nature and characteristics of concept mapping, course context, three experimental exercises, and student responses in evaluations. Finds that concept-mapping techniques increased students' understanding. Emphasizes the continuing potential of this…

High school students no longer keep company with the grown-ups they are about to become. Schools and districts have grown exponentially larger, impersonal, and bureaucratic, resembling post offices. Superintendents and boards who know their schools only through media representations or statistics fashion unrealistic policies. Coercion and…