Describes a 50-minute session designed to improve students' writing of science laboratory reports. Using an improperly worded description of how to make a peanut butter sandwich, the students work in groups to improve "point of view" and "voice." The changes are then used to create better reports. (TW)

Analysis of content area writing of Arab university students (N=96) studying English for Academic Purposes revealed problems in three major categories: sentence structure, paragraph structure, and content. Weakness in foreign language writing skills appeared related to weakness in mastery of Arabic writing skills. (Author/CB)

Discusses writing instruction with the use of ACCESS (A Computer Composing Educational Software System), a program that allows the design of virtually any lesson or exercise a teacher envisions. Describes how ACCESS does the actual programming while the instructor provides the menus and overall program design. Appends 22 practical exercises. (NKA)

The experience of a writing teacher who taught fourth and fifth graders how to take notes, describe what they observed, interview, write quickly, amd edit their own work are presented. Searching for ideas, gathering and sifting, finding a focus, rethinking and correcting, and reaching an audience are discussed. (MLW)

Provides examples of ways in which teachers can use word processors in the classroom to improve student writing, to use instructional time more productively, and to generate student interest and involvement in learning to write. (IW)

Reports on evaluation studies of the French proficiency of graduates of early- and late-entry immersion programs in Ottawa and Carleton, describes the tests used, and interprets results. The report also examines the students' perceptions of their ability to participate effectively in out-of-school situations using all four language skills. (MSE)

Emphasizes understanding the social psychology of individual and community resistance to schooling in classes of adult students in job training programs. Points out that basic unit of educational organization should be the group of teachers, that classes should be organized as work groups which should share the tasks of education and everyday…

When they write on topics with personal meaning and read one another's papers to see whether they are communicating, even hard-to-teach students recognize the power of language and their ability to use it. An 11-item reference list is provided. (Author/DCS)

Study considers teachers' evaluations of students who perform equivalently in written academic work but who have distinct speech varieties including Spanish-influenced English. Despite length of teaching experience and teacher ethnicity, all teachers favored the non-Spanish-influenced speakers. (SL)

Examines materials available from ERIC that are designed to familiarize teachers with computer software. (MM)

Investigates the relationship between topic-specific background knowledge and measures of overall quality, coherence, syntactic complexity, audience, and function in the expository writing of tenth grade students. (HOD)

Background: There is limited research on the FL composition writing of Egyptian experimental secondary students. Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of the Whole Language Approach on developing the required composition writing skills in English for experimental secondary students. Setting: Salah Salem…

Writing, speaking and listening are communication skills that are important in all subject areas in the curriculum. Hence, literacy should have a central position in the curriculum. Even so, differences between students' levels of literacy mean that some students fail to acquire the verbal foundations for learning. For this reason, increasing…

Background: Over the past twenty years, many investigations have been carried out to identify factors influencing second language (L2) learning. Specifically, investigations of the relationship among first language (L1) reading skills, L2 reading skills, and L2 proficiency have been variously conducted, to contribute to the overall growth of L1-L2…

In recent years, the rate of Chinese immigrants to the United States has been increasing. Chinese parents desire that their Chinese-American children learn Chinese as a second language. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects on four American-born Chinese children when the researcher, as an instructor, employed whole language…