The acquisition of English vocabulary and syntax was compared over three years for three matched groups of profoundly hearing impaired students using either cochlear implants, tactile aids, or hearing aids. All children received auditory-oral instruction. The cochlear implant group exhibited faster acquisition of all language and communication…

A physics/chemistry teacher examined how brain-based learning environments could produce better learning conditions for students. He used thematic teaching, enriched language, naturally complex, long-term design and construction projects, and multifaceted assessment tools. The one-year curriculum indicated that teachers need not sacrifice content…

This article illustrates the use of monologue interpretation, in which an interpreter illuminates issues in a speaker's monologue to translate theoretical pedagogical material into usable classroom applications. The example shows how the tenets of Guba and Lincoln's (1989) Responsive Constructivist Fourth Generation Model were presented via…

Examined the discourse patterns used by a native speaker of English while explaining the rules and playing the board game Monopoly with three college students of varying levels of English proficiency (low nonnative, good nonnative, and native). It found that the "teacher" must modify her speech to enable the nonnative speakers to…

Describes the limitations of public speaking courses and claims current instruction is culturally ethnocentric and stresses form. Maintains that students are evaluated by their ability to particularize a speech category. Shows students have unequal opportunities for success in such classes and may not develop competencies that generalize to a…

Examines the descriptive and analytical work of students and teachers through classroom talk and interaction, using information from audiotaped classroom activities to identify classroom members' work. The article discusses the organization of classroom knowledge, relationships, and order, noting relationships between descriptive and analytic work…

Considers varying perceptions about the need for faculty to publish (and the influence of such publishing on tenure, promotion, and merit pay) held by faculty members and selected administrators on various small college campuses. (SR)

The relationship between oral and written language skills was explored in this study involving 97 participants in an adult literacy program. Analysis of pragmatic language skills identified behaviors likely to detract from communicative effectiveness. A test of metalinguistic/semantic skills correlated with reading levels of subjects. Follow-up…

Reports on an INSET course for the staff of an international school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The article argues that all teachers involved in the support of English-as-a-Second-Language learners can best communicate with each other and facilitate their students' learning through the medium of "common codes," which are defined and…

A study investigated how young learners of English as a second language become both linguistically creative and capable of socializing in English through the use of prefabricated language (PL) (memorized chunks of sentences). Observations of four Japanese preschool children in two-way immersion programs suggested that PL acts as a scaffold for…

This study investigated the acquisition of speaking skills in an online distance education course of 19 first semester Spanish learners. The possibility of oral development in a strictly online course was examined based on students' pronunciation production in two types of recorded speaking activities and in two real-time conversations. Students…

This study investigated the perception of place and secondary articulation contrasts in different syllable positions by Russian and Japanese listeners. The consonants involved in the study were the Russian plain (velarized) and palatalized labial and coronal voiceless stops in syllable-initial and syllable-final positions at word boundaries. The…

In this paper, experiments on the automatic discrimination of basic emotions from spoken Finnish are described. For the purpose of the study, a large emotional speech corpus of Finnish was collected; 14 professional actors acted as speakers, and simulated four primary emotions when reading out a semantically neutral text. More than 40 prosodic…

Specific relationships between verbal and nonverbal aspects of caregiver attention-focusing events and later verbal IQ were investigated for a risk sample of 26 very low birthweight [VLBW], preterm [PT] children. Videotaped interactions between VLBW, PT children at 2;0 and their caregivers were coded for caregiver attention-focusing speech and/or…

This article reports on a study which investigated the language lives of Afrikaans-speaking South African immigrants in New Zealand. Particularly, it focuses on their awareness of and attitudes to language policy in both South Africa and New Zealand, and how these influence their own and their family's language practices. Narrative interviews with…