Discusses an intervention strategy for interpersonal problems in which primary grade students reflect on personal experiences and dilemma stories to increase social cognitive skills. Two first grade classes participated in an experiment applying this intervention method. Findings showed that students' moral judgement, problem-solving skills,…

Investigates vocabulary acquisition in the context of joint picture-book reading in mother-infant dyads. Infants aged 17 to 22 months and their mothers, 20 middle-class and 20 lower-class dyads, were observed. In both groups interaction foucused on the eliciting or the provision of information. Results indicate several social class differences in…

Using a group-listening test, this study examined (1) what terminology from their own vocabulary subjects would use to label music concepts and (2) if consistent terminology would be selected by elementary children and by college students majoring in elementary or music education. (Author/SJL)

This article reports on a study designed to obtain data on the first words understood and produced by eight infants. It provides a descriptive account of the earliest levels of language comprehension and allows comparison of lexical development in comprehension and production. (Author/CFM)

Examined children's generalization of familiar verbs to novel events. Findings reveal children aged 1;8 with the largest expressive vocabulary generalized the same verbs to actions with different agents, but not to actions different in outcome or manner of action and children aged 2;2 extended familiar action verbs to other actions different in…

Attempts to identify a specific learning effect attributed to the use of concordance software by language learners. In a series of tests involving transfer of word knowledge to novel context, a small, consistent gain was found for words introduced through concordances.(25 references) (Author/CK)

Describes planning, implementation, and evaluation of an instructional unit that uses a direct instruction approach to teach the basics of American Sign Language to elementary-age students with serious emotional or behavior disorders. Figures list lesson topics and instructional objectives, provide a sample lesson plan and a story suitable for…

Sign language production of 14 low-functioning students (ages 9 to 20) with autistic disorder were examined. The location aspect of signs was produced more accurately by subjects than either the handshape or movement aspects. Wide individual differences were observed. Sign vocabulary size and accuracy was correlated with performance on two…

Rehabilitates teaching techniques that exploit both the meaning-driven and form-focused potential of reformulation and reconstruction tasks in English-as-a-Second-Language classes. Argues that the potential for focusing learners' attention on form has received little attention in instruction models. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Investigates the effects of Spanish-English bilinguals' first-language syntactic knowledge on the guesses they make about the meanings of new words encountered in English contexts. Examines a particular type of transfer to understand the process of vocabulary acquisition in second-language readers. (48 references) (Author/CK)

Building on the prior work of Sanaoui (1995), this article reports on the results of administering a self-report questionnaire to students of English as a Second Language to discover the vocabulary learning activities that learners engaged in outside class. Discusses why a structured learning approach did not predict either greater vocabulary…

Discusses critical issues facing the languages across the curriculum (LAC) movement. These include benefits to students derived from LAC offerings, effective curriculum design and teaching methods, benefits of LAC to teachers in other fields, and justification of the costs of long-term institutional support. (40 references) (CK)

Maternal ostensive naming was investigated in a cross-sectional study of 12 children. Display, demonstration, and pointing were coded with regard to whether and how coexisting speech referred to gesture focus. Maternal input was found to be significantly correlated with children's reported receptive vocabulary. (Author/JL)

Investigates how many words of the Dutch language, and which words, an adult nonnative speaker must know receptively in order to understand first-year university reading materials. Assessment of the representativeness of a list of 23,550 words and administration of a 140-item multiple-choice vocabulary test indicated that a minimum of 10,000 base…

Selects the major demands in the new general syllabus for second-language learning in the United Kingdom and suggests ways in which teachers and learners can successfully fulfill them. These criteria center around vocabulary requirements and writing, speaking, listening, and reading tests. (10 references) (Author/CK)