To determine student readiness in any academic subject, teachers must determine individual levels of cognitive competencies children possess.

Ways of using literature to train students in making critical inferences are discussed. (JH)

Authors believes that three phenomena are all instances of "learned helplessness," instances in which an organism has learned that outcomes are uncontrollable by his responses and is seriously debilitated by this knowledge. This article explores the evidence for the phenomena of learned helplessness, and discussed a variety of theoretical…

New trends in teaching EFL in Europe are compiled and evaluated from various national and international research studies. Proposals for the integration of the semantic syllabus are emphasized. A movement towards rhetoric is found. (MS)

This article discusses the psychology of second language learning, and specifically comments on Gantier's book on the teaching of foreign languages. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Reports on an experiment in which students were taught the learning skills necessary for the understanding of a physical definition or law and those skills necessary for a type of problem solving. Results indicate that students can be taught such general cognitive skills and that they can transfer these skills to areas outside of physics.…

Rational-emotive counseling (REC) aims at changing beliefs or philosophies that lead to negative emotions and inappropriate behavior. It gives people responsibility for creating their existence. REC maintains it is not the "facts" that influence our behaviors and feelings but our interpretation of these "facts". Use of this approach with…

This article discusses the question of the optimal age for second language learning by providing some background and by comparing relevant British and Canadian language teaching programs. (CLK)

Two studies were carried out demonstrating the interaction of intonation grouping and meaning relations between words in free recall. When the intonation grouping is in phase with the word relations, recall is facilitated. When it is out of phase, recall is lowered. (Author/RM)

Two detection experiments were conducted with short lists of synthetic speech stimuli where phoneme targets were compared to syllable targets. Results suggest that phonemes and syllables are equally basic to speech perception. (Author/RM)

Much difficulty in teaching composition stems from the erroneous assumption that thought precedes writing. (JH)

English teachers must organize activities that will teach the true processes of revision. (JH)

"Openness-to-the-world" is a prerequisite to good personal writing.

Studied the effect of classroom verbal interactions between teachers and students on the development of skills important in process-oriented elementary science curricula. Both suburban and inner-city sixth-grade students increased their ability to infer when they were exposed to a probing, rather than a nonprobing, discussion strategy. (MLH)