Using the example of the African-American community and its own distinctive voice, argues that schools can draw upon routine practices within the cultural life of communities to enhance the literature students' skills. This paper explores "signifying" and links between literature and talk in the African-American community. (JB)

Finds that female students rated female faculty especially high across five teaching dimensions and male faculty comparatively lower, whereas male students did not evaluate male and female professors as significantly different. Finds that assessments of faculty were further influenced by the strength of students' gender schema and that gender…

Presents seven examples of integrating language arts into the curriculum through the use of community connections: (1) exploring curriculum with themed instruction; (2) promoting discussion; (3) using oral language; (4) introducing "found poetry"; (5) writing across the curriculum; (6) sharing an interpretive reading activity in a readers'…

Discusses five recent books about language that address issues that arise in classrooms with an increasing number of diverse dialects and varied home languages. Discusses the complexities of language, misunderstandings in the Ebonics controversy, socioeducational issues, and classroom ideas for teachers. Describes two web sites. (SR)

As most deaf individuals experience two languages (American Sign Language, English) and three modalities (sign, speech, print), this article describes code variations and adaptations in particular situations at a school for the deaf. Most language was mixed in both code and mode; such mixing was seen to be a strategy which uniquely adapts…

Explores whether pragmatic fluency is best acquired by provision of input and opportunity for communicative practice alone, or whether learners profit more with additional explicit instruction in the use of conversational routines. The article hypothesized that such instruction raises learners' awareness of the functions and contextual…

Examines the phenomenon of pragmatic transfer as a possible basis for cultural stereotypes. Data from second language (L2) German learners of English are compared with data from native speakers of American English. Results suggest that the German English L2 speakers produced responses more in keeping with German rules of speaking and conventions…

The Lidcombe Program is an operant treatment for early stuttering. Outcomes indicate that the program is effective; however, the underlying mechanisms leading to a successful reduction of stuttering remain unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine whether fluency achieved with the Lidcombe Program was accompanied by concomitant reduction…

This study investigates whether working memory skills of children are related to teacher ratings of their progress towards learning goals at the time of school entry, at 4 or 5 years of age. A sample of 194 children was tested on measures of working memory, phonological awareness, and non-verbal ability, in addition to the school-based baseline…

Elementary teachers engaged in weekly conversations about their students' writing. Conversations were guided by a protocol that began with an assessment of students' writing samples and then moved to the generation of instructional ideas. The conversations were analyzed for what the teachers talked about and the extent to which they generated…

This study is concerned with possible relationships between general foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA), gender, extended overseas experience, and classroom performance. Versions of previously published measurement scales (the FLCAS and the FLRAS) were administered to three different groups in nine…

This article describes a teacher-as-researcher project conducted by Karen Shelton (second author), a hard-working middle school teacher. This project focused on using written conversation as an instructional strategy to integrate reading, writing, and social studies. The authors begin with a classroom vignette to describe how William Bintz (first…

Examination boards are often criticized for their failure to provide evidence of comparability across forms, and few such studies are publicly available. This study aims to investigate the extent to which three forms of the General English Proficiency Test Intermediate Speaking Test (GEPTS-I) are parallel in terms of two types of validity…

Discussion of speech instruction in bilingual education for deaf children refutes the assumption that speech is acquired automatically by hearing children and examines a program in which deaf children are taught alongside hearing children. The first part looks at how speech functions and how children acquire it: including the nature of the…

A course entitled "Communicating through Multimedia" was designed as a capstone experience for upperclassmen. It was a team-taught interdisciplinary course in the application of multimedia technology. Students in the course came from three disciplines--speech communication, mass communication, and management information systems. The…