Confrontation with a mathematical task causes a student to focus initial attention upon particular content and context cues based upon that student's belief system; the student assigns subsequent meaning to that task based upon previous mathematical experience and knowledge. In order to make effective use of students' belief systems, educators…

This study proposed that captioned television, as a multi-sensory, largely entertaining medium might be an important source of comprehensive input for bilingual students in learning language and literacy. To explore this issue, the study investigated the following questions: (1) can bilingual students acquire vocabulary incidentally through…

Six papers on Australian Aboriginal and Islander grammars include: "Repetition of Tiwi at Clause Level" (Marie P. Godfrey); "Iwaidja Verbal Clauses" (Noreen Pym); "Murinbata Noun Clauses" (Chester S. Street); "Clauses in Kala Lagaw Ya" (Rod Kennedy); "Kalaw Kawaw Verbs" (Rod Kennedy); and…

The decontextualized nature of literacy has been a recurrent issue in discussions of the consequences of literacy over the last twenty years. The central thesis of these discussions is that the nature of written discourse itself leads directly or indirectly to changes in cognitive processing, linguistic progressing, cultural development, and/or…

The approach used to teach English in Japanese high schools is evaluated from the perspective of the skills needed for the university entrance examinations. The tests are examined for item type and for the skills and learning processes needed to answer them. An extensive graded reading program is most appropriate to prepare students for these…

Discourse is basically interactive. This is clear in conversation, but the concept can be extended to written language. Written text can be analyzed as spoken discourse. The methodology of English text studies has adhered too much to a textual approach and even extended it to spoken data. Another approach would be to begin with the spoken form of…

Fifty-five structures of the Chinese language are described and their particular usage patterns are discussed for the use of teachers, linguists, and advanced students of Chinese. Each structure is listed by its major structural element(s), its grammatical element(s), or a combination of the two. The examination of each structure consists of an…

Papers from a workshop on the role and development of national languages include: "What Is a National Language Good for?" (Florian Coulmas); "To the Language Born: Thoughts on the Problem of National and International Languages" (Jacob Mey); "Swahili as a National Language in East Africa" (Marilyn Merritt, Mohamed…

The historical background and the current status of Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania, where it is designated as the national language, and in Uganda, where it has assumed a less prominent role, are described. Major factors contributing to the selection of national languages in the region are presented. The ways both linguistic and sociopolitical…

Early speech-act theorists studied isolated speech acts, often in terms of single sentences invented by the investigator, an approach that had obvious limitations. It is now known that speech acts ought to be investigated by looking at utterances in their full interactional context. A hierarchical model of the structure of conversation that is…

The objectives of any language awareness course must be to lead students to a greater awareness of what they already know about language. This kind of course is ideal for student-centered activity, with the students exploring language and the teacher only occasionally imparting new facts. It will have more immediacy if it focuses on the students'…

Development of language awareness programs at the elementary and early secondary levels requires teacher willingness, coherent policy and guidelines for selecting methods and content, and teacher awareness and acceptance of the policies and guidelines and their practical potential. Studies suggest that in Great Britain, the first three…

Literacy is a social concept more reflective of culture and context than of formal instruction and can be used for cultural transmission within a society or for cultural imperialism when imposed from outside. The Algonquian-speaking Micmac Indians used pictographs, petroglyphs, notched sticks, and wampum as written communication to serve early…

A discussion of points raised by Dell Hymes in his article "On Communicative Competence" leads to a proposal for a clearer and more comprehensive theory of communicative competence based on two models, a matrix of discourse analysis and a model of communication interaction. Pedagogical implications of the theory are considered, including the…

A study of the effects of the complexity of scenarios used in the Strategic Interaction Method of second language instruction had four scenarios of varying complexity performed by four university classes of students of English as a second language at varying levels. Indicators of complexity included the degree of verbalness, contextual constraint,…