The background, research, development, and recommended use of a set of instructional materials for teaching listening comprehension to adult learners of English as a second language are outlined in detail. The materials were developed in response to a need for real-life language samples for use in teaching listening comprehension of English. A…

To test the hypothesis that induced mental imagery would facilitate the contemplation and reflection that have been suggested as being important to the writing process, a study investigated the effects of instructions to induce mental imagery upon the written language of young children. Subjects, 28 third grade children, were randomly assigned to…

This study aims to better understand the construction of the meaning of physics concepts in mechanics during a teaching sequence at the upper secondary school level. In the teaching sessions, students were introduced to the concepts of interaction and force. During this teaching sequence the models called "interactions" and "laws of…

A study was conducted to examine the relationships of four areas of textual design factors that are relevant to external students' learning as they use their course study guides: the micro and macro textual features, the linguistics, and the instructional design elements. Twelve external students from two units at the Gippsland Institute were…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest examines the current state of the plain English movement, which is an effort to persuade government agencies, businesses, and professional organizations to write in clear, understandable English. After enumerating the benefits that the use of plain English can generate…

This activity packet offers simple directions for setting up a Morse Code system appropriate to interfacing with any of several personal computer systems. Worksheets are also included to facilitate teaching Morse Code to persons with visual or other disabilities including blindness, as it is argued that the code is best learned auditorily. (PB)

To find differences and similarities between spoken and written English, analyses were made of four specific kinds of language. Twenty adults, either graduate students or university professors, provided a sample of each of the following: conversations, lectures, informal letters, and academic papers. Conversations and lecture samples came from…

Listeners generally rate speakers of high initial ethos (such as university professors) using mildly self-deprecating humor highly on traits like "wittiness" and "funniness." A three-part study investigated whether a speaker of lower initial ethos (such as a student) can "get away" with such self-deprecation. In Experiment 1, college students read…

The literature of psycholinguistics and multilingualism is reviewed to examine the relationship between macrological social variables such as social class, and individual variables related to language behavior in a multilingual setting. The growing body of evidence assessing the link between certain social and community dimensions and specific…

Traditionally, classroom instruction has been viewed as a structured, deliberately sequenced process leading to predetermined goals within given time limits. However, classroom second language instruction appears to be less efficient than non-classroom language acquisition. The reason may lie in the distinction between linguistic input (all…

Jamaican Creole-speaking college students find it difficult to switch to standard English for school-related tasks. At the composition level, many Jamaican students still experience problems with higher order concerns such as a organization, unity, and coherence. With regard to lower order concerns, three types of writing miscues are prevalent:…

A study of feedback in conversational question-response exchanges focused on the questioner's feedback to the respondent. It examined three types of "followup" moves: the ordinary type revealing the questioner's attitude to the response and closing the exchange; the type signaling the questioner's reaction to the response and inviting…

In language learning, one important prerequisite for successful imitation of the native speaker is full awareness of his linguistic behavior and, if possible, its analysis. Brief language immersion and brief periods of conversation in the target language do not provide enough opportunity to observe the native speakers' linguistic peculiarities and…

A language research project investigated the phenomenon of transcreation, that is, the transference of the linguistic markers, communicative strategies, cultural notions, social elements, and contextual clues of the local culture to the native English variety. The focus is on the relationship between language and gender and the contribution of…

A study of differences in linguistic behavior between men and women in Amman, Jordan, used a random sample of 150 individuals as subjects. Distribution of lexical items was examined for variation correlating lexical choice with sex of the speaker, and phonological variable standardization and the manner in which choice of variant is conditioned by…