A study examined the use of background information by native and non-native English-speaking university students in explaining, summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and copying information from a reading text. Thirty students in composition courses (10 native speakers and 20 non-native speakers, 10 each from a remedial and a standard class) wrote…

Designed for the beginning college student who needs to search for information, prepare written assignments, or take tests, the ACC (Austin Community College) Study Guide Series comprises 17 one-page study guides. Printed on card stock with colored headings, the guides are highlighted with cartoon illustrations and are intended to provide…

A set of materials for independent study of Arabic is designed for Peace Corps volunteers working in Oman and Yemen who have had Arabic language training but need additional skills. It establishes guidelines for independent study and working with a tutor, helps check language performance, and provides grammatical information for reference. The…

Designed to help students develop efficient and effective study skills, the first of five sections in this booklet discusses the student role, including the overall purpose of a course of study, the student's obligations and responsibilities, ways in which a student is expected to develop, and the importance of organization. The second section…

Written examinations are considered to be more searching than oral ones; they are less subject to chance because they give more time to the student for reflection, and they do not favor one type of learner over another. This view is taken even though language is speech before it is writing. While there may be a need for a complementary oral…

Undergraduate project work in a sample of British universities was investigated. After initial informal discussions with project supervisors and students, questionnaires were refined, and attention was focused on: project choice, project initiation, development and progress, staff/student relationship, assessment, and resources. Resources were one…

Using one newspaper produced by an upper elementary school class as an example, this booklet describes how to put together such a newspaper in ways that will develop students' language skills. Chapters provide (1) a rationale for classroom newspapers, (2) organizational schemes for the newspaper, (3) possible job assignments, (4) some workable…

A study was conducted to assess the French language proficiency of grade 10 and grade 11 students from three different French immersion programs: early, grade 7, and grade 7/8 immersion. English and French control groups were included in the study. The results indicate that: (1) the three immersion groups scored significantly higher than the…

Intended to show teachers how their approaches to the teaching of writing reflect a particular area of research and to show researchers how the intuitions of teachers reflect research findings, the articles in this book are classified according to three approaches to writing: processing, distancing, and modeling. After an introductory essay that…

The 14 articles in this journal issue provide suggestions for making language study interesting. Specific topics discussed in the articles include (1) metaphors, (2) expressing feelings, (3) grammar for speakers of nonstandard English dialects, (4) medical jargon, (5) grammar in the writing process, (6) the rhetoric of teacher comments, (7) slang,…

In response to the Utah State Board of Education's new high school graduation requirements, five task forces of adult basic education teachers were charged with the identification of functional competencies for adult students in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and computation, and with the development of curricular materials…

The accuracy of predictions of future student performance on the basis of graphing data on semi-logarithmic charts and equal interval graphs was examined. All 83 low-achieving students in grades 3 to 6 read randomly-selected lists of words from the Harris-Jacobson Word List for 1 minute. The number of words read correctly and words read…

The 1981 Basic Skills Summer School Program in Montgomery County, Maryland public schools provided intensive remedial instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics to pupils who scored very low on national standardized achievement tests. An evaluation of the program's effects found that (1) over all, participating students in grades 4-8 scored…

A study examined the analytic writing development of high school seniors and college students. Subjects, approximately 50 high school seniors and 100 college students, performed two writing tasks on the same topic, one for an audience in agreement and one for a hostile audience. About a third of the subjects made taped protocols of their writing…

To provide an objective statement of how a wide range of students at the University of Texas at El Paso performed on a test measuring verbal basic skills, a computerized analysis of variance compared group mean scores on a test of basic skills competence for 1,553 students in 6 groups, including graduating seniors and students in 4 levels of…