David Niguidula, an education consultant who helped research the effectiveness of digital portfolios as an assessment tool in the mid-1990s, discusses core questions for schools planning to use digital portfolios. Schools must take time to identify the purpose of portfolios, plan what will go into portfolios, and decide how to assess portfolio…

The value and role of concordancers (simple computer programs that can quickly analyze electronic texts to find occurrences of a given word, part of a word, or phrase and display it within its immediate context) in secondary school English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teaching are examined. First, their use in higher education is discussed,…

The main goal of this practicum was to increase general science achievement and improve acquisition of Spanish as a second language in a group of 21 sixth-grade Spanish immersion students. The students were having some difficulty with Spanish learning due to lack of Spanish science vocabulary, lack of appropriate science materials accommodating…

The guide, written by experienced English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers, offers practical information to teachers and developers of adult ESL students of varying literacy and proficiency levels. An introductory section offers background information on development of these materials in the Metropolitan Nashville (Tennessee) Public Schools.…

This guide is intended to help teachers integrate computer-assisted instruction into classrooms which include students who are at risk for or students who have mild and moderate disabilities such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After an introductory chapter, Chapter 2 discusses how computer programs can help students with particular…

Techniques for using children's rhymes, games, tongue twisters, and fables in Spanish to teach bilingual education classes are described. It is argued that these abundant materials serve as natural sources for authentic Spanish from a variety of Hispanic cultures. With the appeal of rhythm, rhyme, and game-like feeling, they can be used to teach…

Texts of conference papers and summaries of colloquia on second language curriculum design are presented, including: "Competency Assessment in Curriculum Renewal" (summary of session with Ian Harrison, Francis Johnson, Christopher Candlin, Anthony Green, David Nunan, Charles Smith); "The Evolving of a Curriculum" (Hiroshi Abe,…

This revised publication focuses on selection issues relating to multicultural anti-bias curriculum, diversity, and inclusion while giving special consideration to the use of computers in classrooms. The first part of the booklet deals with the learning environment. The first article, "Creating the Learning Environment: Context for Learning…

This resource guide is designed for teachers and others interested in fostering Spanish instruction in the schools of the United Kingdom, especially at the secondary level. The first of nine chapters looks at the status of and rationale for Spanish language instruction in the United Kingdom. The second chapter addresses topics in instructional…

Technology can be utilized as a tool for creating macrocontexts for teaching integrated science and language arts. Teachers can use several criteria for deciding what kind of technology-based resources to use; the teacher's level of confidence in science and language arts content and knowledge of technology-based resources is vital to making such…

This book provides the tools for school library media specialists to make a significant and positive impact on the children and young adults in schools. The goals of this work are to delineate a realistic role structure for the school media specialist; to present the role of instructional consultant as obtainable and desirable; and to provide the…

The use of mass media as a means of learning a foreign language from the beginning of language study is discussed. Using the media enables many of the features of the natural language acquisition process to be brought into play in a way that much current language teaching material does not. This position is supported by recent research into the…

A guide to the development of programs in English as a second language (ESL) outlines the program development process and necessary considerations. A foreword describes the two major types of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students and notes differences between LEP students in general and their monolingual English-speaking counterparts. Chapters…

This document presents the United States Department of Defense Dependents Schools' (DoDDS) framework for developing and evaluating curriculum. The primary innovation described is a 7-year cycle, adopted to make curriculum evaluation more flexible and less costly than under the existing 5-year cycle. Seven high-priority subject areas (science,…

The materials status report for the Berber languages, minority languages spoken in northern Africa, is one of a series intended to provide the nonspecialist with a picture of the availability and quality of texts for teaching various languages to English speakers. The report consists of: (1) a brief narrative description of the Berber language,…