This paper describes the effect of cultural context on the content of kindergarten curriculum in Poland, chronicling the historical changes from Communist to post-Soviet, capitalist cultures. Soviet cultural influence on early childhood education from 1945 to 1989 is described as affecting a single obligatory curriculum, strict government control,…

Proceedings of a seminar on the design and implementation of training education programs for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers are presented in the form of papers, presentations, and summary narrative. They include: the keynote address (Keith Morrow); "Participants' Views of Issues and Constraints in Teacher Training";…

A study addressed the ways in which classroom interaction is structured explicitly and implicitly through a teacher's questions. It examined how this was done through the questions one teacher asked in her adult literacy class and what insights could be gained for adult literacy staff development programs. The research was undertaken in mid-1990…

This study compared techniques for teaching collaborative writing to English majors in Taiwan, focusing on the effectiveness of computer-mediated (CM) vs. face-to-face (FF) peer response sessions, measured by amount of speech produced by students and the level of participation in discussion. Subjects were 17 university sophomores in a composition…

Current technology provides many new ideas and alternatives to traditional education and training practices. From the experience of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Academic Instructor School (AIS) and current research in the field, teaching via interactive television (teleseminar/video teletraining) requires new teaching skills and new ways of thinking…

An ongoing four-year ethnographic study of two cohorts of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners enrolled in mainstream Canadian primary school classrooms is described. The two cohorts are: (1) a group of six children observed from the beginning of kindergarten through the end of grade 2, and (2) five children observed from early kindergarten…

This final report documents achievements of a project to assess social impact and achievement gains resulting from the use of interactive videodisc technology to teach fractions in mainstreamed classrooms across multicultural settings. Subjects (N=294) were regular upper elementary students and students with mild handicaps (MH) in Utah, Wyoming,…

This special issue is devoted to the theme of advancing technology in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Articles include: "Technology in TESOL" (Richard Orem, Cynthia Holliday); TESOL Technology: Imposition or Opportunity?" (Simon Murison-Bowie); "A Review of Advanced Technologies for L2…

This guide addresses problems in communication occurring between teachers in training and their observers/trainers, particularly after an observation session. It presents a series of activities intended for workshop use and designed to encourage communication that conveys intention and meaning more effectively. The activities include exercises in…

An inservice teacher education course was designed to address the problems of content-area teachers in teaching limited-English-proficient (LEP) students. Goals were for content-area teachers: (1) to gain sensitivity to and understanding of the special needs of this population; (2) to become aware of the cultural and linguistic diversity and…

Educational seduction, in which a charismatic, entertaining instructor obtains favorable student ratings while presenting insufficient lecture content, threatens the validity of student ratings and teaching effectiveness research. To examine the effects of one educational seduction variable, instructor expressiveness, on student achievement…

This handbook for classroom teachers is motivated by the need to promote academic language use among students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. First, several works providing a rationale for using student-centered instructional practices as a means of promoting student learning are reviewed. The pitfalls of using…

Proceedings of the Pacific Region Association for Higher Education (PRAHE) are presented, including 5 opening speeches, 6 plenary lectures, 7 invited lectures, and 13 general papers. Presentation topics include: higher education and societal change; educational exchange and the Pacific Rim; international cooperation through electronic media;…

One teacher's experiences in incorporating non-hierarchic learning assumptions and values in the second language classroom, especially through the use of dialogue journals, are reported. In the first part, observations of accuracy-based classroom language teaching are contrasted with the meaning-based acquisition model. Six salient characteristics…

As part of a larger study of significant bilingual instructional education features, the stability of instruction by 10 teachers was examined. Six aspects of instruction were investigated: instructional organization, time allocation, active teaching, use of the students' native or English language and culture, curriculum intent, and the teacher's…