The purpose of this article is to evaluate a pedagological tool for student's study of death and bereavement. Previous research suggests that students may be more willing to discuss issues associated with death through written correspondence rather than through oral communication. However, despite these efforts there are still students who…

In a previous study [Schwartz et al. (2005). "Written Language and Literacy," 8, 179-207] we showed that early literacy in Russian (L1) facilitated decoding acquisition in Hebrew (L2) among Russian-Hebrew first graders. The present study examined two alternative explanations for this finding. The first account concerns the general…

This paper argues that the challenge of intercultural communication has often been overlooked in discussions of indigenous language literacy in Africa. The omission continues despite the fact that literacy practices in Africa have often served as a means of intercultural communication, especially among highly educated Africans. Proposals for the…

The emerging use of portable digital devices by students, parents and teachers, is forcing schools to develop real-time communication systems that integrate technology into the general operations of schools, and contemplate governing policies and procedures to sustain and guide the challenges of these new technologies. This study contributes to…

This article explores mother tongue awareness among several Brazilian Amerindian societies in contrast with the perception of the importance of the vernacular according to policy makers and academics. The perception of the vernacular as important is discussed in the light of continuing debate among Brazil's educators concerning appropriate…

Rubrics are an integral part of many writing programs, and they represent elements of good writing in essays, stories, poems, as well as other genres and forms of text. Although it is possible to use rubrics to teach students about the processes underlying effective writing, a more common practice is to use rubrics as a means of assessment, after…

What causes dyslexia, and how does it manifest across languages? As bilingualism becomes increasingly important globally, these questions have never been more critical--and this comprehensive volume from The Dyslexia Foundation explores them in unprecedented depth. Bringing together the best brain-based, genetics, and behavioral research in the…

This study was an ethnographic case study that investigated oral and written language learning in a first grade classroom in Kenya. The languages used in this classroom were Swahili and English only. Kamba the mother tongue of the majority of the children, was banned in the entire school. In this classroom there were 89 children with two teachers,…

This paper focuses on the relation between two areas of research which owe a great debt to the work of Giyoo Hatano: the ways in which the use of the abacus mediates arithmetic problem solving and the way in which the use of the kanji writing system mediates the interpretation of unfamiliar words. These examples are related to L. S. Vygotsky's…

The present article offers comments on the infusion of methodologies, approaches, reasoning strategies, and findings from the fields of genetics and genomics into studies of complex human behaviors (hereafter, complex phenotypes). Specifically, I discuss issues of generality and specificity, causality, and replicability as they pertain to…

This article investigates lexical gender in specialized communication. The key method of analysis is that of forms of address, professional titles, and "generic man" in a 10 million word corpus of written Business English. After a brief introduction and literature review on both gender in specialized communication and similar corpus-based views of…

This paper uses a methodology that synthesises an Academic Literacies approach and Critical Discourse Analysis to explore student experiences of feedback on written assessments in two higher education institutions. The qualitative analysis of student interviews is oriented around three topics: (1) the socially situated meaning of feedback; (2)…

This study of L-2 Russian interlanguage production examined the salience of phonetic, lexical and syntactical features for L-1 listener intelligibility, based on L-2 recitation of written scripts (Part I) and also unrehearsed speech (Part II). Part III of the study investigated strategies used by native-speaking teachers of Russian as a Second…

The utmost goal of foreign language instruction is aimed at helping the learner master the language. At the same time the learner shall become equipped with linguistic, pragmatic and social-linguistic competence. This study was done to explore if review activities in EFL classes should be mandatory for learners to learn the new knowledge. One…