A discussion of the role of the Japanese language in the English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) classroom in Japan presents several arguments in favor of using Japanese, followed by some notes of caution and a call to teachers to reflect on their classroom language use. Arguments for using students' native language (L1) include these: in mixed level…

A series of both daily classroom activities and a long-term assignment in which secondary school language students actively use the Internet and the World Wide Web are described. Class activities target each of three proficiency levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). They include having students check the weather, check out major…

This publication features reports by eight Carnegie Scholars who are working to develop a scholarship of teaching and learning that will advance the profession of teaching and improve student learning. Following the Introduction, "Approaching the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" (Pat Hutchings), the papers are: "Investigating Student Learning…

Multimedia computer programs that can be produced in a few hours by faculty or language laboratory staff could change the way colleges teach foreign languages. New tools allow exercises to be custom tailored to suit student interests and skill levels and to use authentic texts in new ways. Initial response by faculty users has been enthusiastic.…

An analysis and assessment of the Course Redesign Project, which used technology to improve student learning and course satisfaction in large lecture courses at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Six disciplinary-diverse departments participated in the project. Technology was selected for the purpose of introducing active learning into…

When Jason Johnson, a student at the University of the Cumberlands in the eastern Kentucky hills, posted comments about his new boyfriend on his Myspace.com Web page, he unintentionally sparked a controversy that quickly embroiled the college, the president of the state senate, and Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher. The Baptist-affiliated college,…

The incorporation of technology into library processes has tremendously impacted staff and users alike. The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries is no exception. Sixteen years of reference statistics are analyzed to examine the relationships between the implementation of CD-ROMs and web-based resources and the number of reference questions.…

This paper examines reading achievement when the maternal/paternal language has become a de facto second language. The performance of a cohort of Greek-Australian high school students (N = 270) on a diagnostic Greek reading test was significantly below that of pupils in second to fourth grades in Greece. The mean item difficulty for…

A study compared four tests of English as a Second Language (ESL) used for placement of students of varying language backgrounds and skill levels in an intensive ESL program. The tests were a text-based listening and reading test, a listening dictation, a self-assessment questionnaire, and a self-reported vocabulary size test. All measures were…

A detailed analysis was conducted of the difficulty over time of the essay prompts for the English Composition Achievement Test (ECT) with Essay of the College Board. Differential difficulty was explored by considering whether the relationship between the reference groups of male and white students and the focal groups (female, American Indian,…

The cognitive structure of an algebra test was defined and validated using the linear test model (LLTM) and quadratic assignment (QA) techniques. The LLTM is an extension of the Rasch model with a linear constraint that describes item difficulty in terms of the cognitive operations required to solve the item. The model permits the specification of…

This paper discusses the Supplemental Instruction (SI) model of student academic assistance, a program recognized as exemplary by the U.S. Department of Education and developed at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) to help students in difficult postsecondary courses master course content while they acquire and integrate effective…

This literature review examines selected variables that may influence teachers' ability to read books to preschool and elementary deaf children in total communication programs. The paper explores the role of signs in reading stories and factors influencing the signability of stories, including reading rate, length of sentences, length of text used…

The first (exploratory) phase of the Learning in Science Project focused on science teaching/learning in the Form 1 to 4 level (ages 10 to 14) and sought to identify problems and difficulties in several areas. Provided in this paper are comments obtained during structured/unstructured interviews (from students, ex-students, teachers, headmasters,…

This paper discussed methods currently under study for use with multiple-response data. Besides using Bonferroni inequality methods to control type one error rate over a set of inferences involving multiple response data, a recently proposed methodology of plotting the p-values resulting from multiple significance tests was explored. Proficiency…