Discusses the hypothesis that right hemispheric cognitive processes underlie establishment of meaning in language and in processing of linguistic gestalts, and examines several lines of evidence. Also examined is the hypothesis that societal complexity is related to differences in relative dependence upon cognitive processes controlled by cerebral…

Presents the results of an experiment which examined the temporal characteristics of voiceless plosives in American English, Arabic, and Arabic-accented English. Results showed that Arabic-accented English departed from the target language goal and constituted an articulation type characterizable as more Arabic than Arabic itself. (Author/SED)

In Experiment 1; English-speaking preschool children were given sentence verification task to study development of concept of truth-functional negation. Expereiment 2 was a cross-linguistic replication with Korean-speaking preschool children. Despite same cross-linguistic differences in negation system, Korean-speaking children showed essentially…

Explores children's spoken narratives and the quality and purpose of Sharing Time in the classroom. Considers the quality and effects of teacher responses to students' talk. (HTH)

Presents the history of the development of instruments to test both English proficiency and limited-English-proficient candidates to determine those most likely to successfully complete a machine shop training program. Lists the competencies required at the time of enrollment and provides samples of the tests. (SED)

This study examined first exposures to oral and written English from ages 1-16 years, surveying 212 Ming Chuan University (Taiwan) students. The survey asked about the language spoken at home; age at and context of hearing, reading, writing, and speaking the first English word; experiences with conversations in English; and problems learning…

Virginia Standards of Learning for Kindergarten through fifth grade are listed in this paper with student activities related to observation of live theatre performances of "Pear Blossom's Magic: A Cinderella Story" written by George Wead. This play toured in Virginia in 1999-2000 and was performed by the high school theater touring…

English learners are the fastest growing student population in the United States. Many of these students are placed in classrooms with teachers who lack the preparation to help diverse children excel. This book helps bridge the gap between students' needs and K-12 teachers' preparation, offering an overview of English learners and…

A study examined the impact of ancestral language oral proficiency and literacy skills on ethnic identity for 66 Armenian-American boys and girls aged 8-15 years. Children were active in an Armenian community in America. Armenian language and literacy skills were assessed and ethnic affinity was measured by relative use of first person pronouns…

Designed to help students learn to read by teaching them how to "listen to language," this resource book presents over 90 interactive activities, reproducible manipulatives, picture cards, and word lists to help children connect oral language to written text. It also includes a complete program review with important facts about phonemic…

This digest provides an overview of the methodological foundations underlying the lexical approach to language teaching and the pedagogical implications suggested by them. The lexical approach has received interest in recent years as an alternative to grammar-based approaches. It concentrates on developing learners' proficiency with lexis, or…

The Arabic language used in Egypt is traditionally divided into two major types: classical and colloquial. The idea is that classical or literary Arabic is to be found mostly in formal writing and speaking, whereas colloquial Arabic is used mainly in daily conversation. When it comes to actual usage, however, this distinction is not always clearly…

An analysis is presented of an electronic mail conversation that took place in a Finnish scholarly electronic mailing list. The data is analyzed within the framework of systemic-functional oriented discourse and the theory of register, which attempts to explain the ways language use varies according to the type of situation. The electronic media…

Oral communication and reading correlate well with each other. Objectives, established by the teacher, must be clearly stated and should be challenging, but achievable for students. They need to stress knowledge, skills, and attitudinal objectives with a balance among these three categories. Objectives to be stressed are that students need to:…

This report includes a Maryland statewide analysis, by competency, of student learning outcomes, assessment activities at community colleges, as well as public four-year colleges and universities. The workgroup decide that these reports would focus on each of the five competencies related to general education and essential skills that are…