The development of effective skills and basic competencies in written English for Ute students in a reservation public school system and adult Ute learners seeking high school equivalency certificates is discussed. The focus of analysis is on assessing the Ute students' assumptions about written language and their use of those assumptions when…

To question how she constructed an earlier idea about the role resistance takes in peer tutoring, a college professor examined the literature review she had prepared for the first chapter of her doctoral dissertation. In the literature review, the professor intended to establish an interpretive lens to comment about an African-American woman's…

The study reported here analyzed the interaction performance of instructional supervisors as they conducted postobservation conferences with teachers. Seven supervisor-teacher pairs consisting of varying combinations of experienced, beginning, and novice teachers and supervisors were examined, to determine status indicators such as jargon use,…

Among the strategies used by the adult to engage the child in a linguistic interaction, those involving questioning occupy a central position. One of the parameters usually taken into account to differentiate the type of questions directed to the child is the opposition between closed (i.e., yes/no) and open-ended questions. The relevance of that…

A study investigates the roles and frames of reference of a family planning counselor as she offers information and counsel to her client and examines the implications for the training of counselors. First, the ideology of family planning counseling is discussed, focusing on the counselor's need to find an appropriate place on the counseling…

A brief overview of discourse analysis is presented, followed by: (1) a description of cross-cultural discourse analysis; (2) an explanation of how cross-cultural discourse analysis applies to language for special purposes (LSP) in general; and (3) a discussion of selected areas for ongoing and future research areas. Emphasis is on discourse…

Although recent classroom research on second language acquisition has begun to focus on student discourse, there are still few studies which examine student questions and their influence in the classroom. Based on multiple observations of four classrooms in an intensive English program, the researchers investigate the factors that work together to…

The influence of discourse and pragmatic transfer in cross-cultural encounters has received little consideration in studies on the construct validity of performance tests. With the current emphasis on direct assessment of speaking proficiency following the protocol of the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), the potential importance of cross-cultural…

A study examined the characteristics of the oral and written production of French-speaking and minority-language students in elementary and secondary multiethnic schools in Montreal (Quebec), with the purpose of assessing the relevance of student evaluation methods. Subjects were 248 elementary and 231 secondary students, categorized in 9 ethnic…

This paper argues that unsatisfactory argumentative and expository texts generated by college students represent a simplification of complex discourse structures. It asserts that the usual explanations for poor student performance, such as illogical thinking, lack of academic commitment, and poor mastery of grammar, are unsatisfactory. The paper…

A collection of essays on the comprehension of text brings together perspectives of different disciplines on discourse. Articles include: "Naturalistic Texts and Naturalistic Tasks" (Herre van Oostendorp, Rolf A. Zwaan); "Psychological Studies of Naturalistic Text" (Arthur C. Graesser, Joseph P. Magliano, Karl Haberlandt);…

Education may be seen as a form of verbal communication. Opinions about the part language plays in pedagogical communication differ according to the emphasis placed on: (1) the teacher (i.e., language as a means of transferring knowledge, as in the traditional teacher-centered concept); (2) the students (or language as a means of learning); or (3)…

This paper examines remediation as the product of perceptions and beliefs about literacy and learning. It illustrates some ways teachers inadvertently participate in constructing inaccurate and limiting notions of learners as being cognitively defective and in need of "remedy," and thus limit classroom learning. It combines an empirical,…

A case study examined the brief conversations about writing that took place between a high school English teacher and two of his students. One illustrative writing conference conversation lasting 1 minute and 19 seconds shows how, through the push and pull of their short exchange, student and teacher simultaneously read the book, read the writing…

Observations of 90 lessons reveal the limitations of the whole-class discussion, the dominant teaching method in elementary and secondary schools. In addition to producing a low percentage of student involvement, rarely more than 50%, teachers' questions and answer techniques do not usually stimulate critical thinking. Besides most often asking…