This article discusses design and usability issues pertaining to context-sensitive "help" in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). As part of the discussion, we present a study in which we examined the effects of three independent factors on student usage of context-sensitive "help": feedback, exercise type, and language proficiency. Forty…

Teachers and students agree that despite the time-consuming nature of providing written commentary and revising using this commentary, teacher feedback is both desirable and helpful. Nonetheless, teachers express concerns about how to provide commentary in ways that their students can effectively use to revise their texts and to learn for future…

The discussion on the role of corrective feedback is part of a larger discussion on the role of "focusing on form" in foreign language teaching ("Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition," Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998). Studies conducted in communicative and content-based foreign language teaching…

This paper reports similarities and differences in teachers' corrective feedback and learners' uptake across instructional settings. Four communicative classroom settings--French Immersion, Canada ESL, New Zealand ESL and Korean EFL--were examined using Lyster and Ranta's taxonomy of teachers' corrective feedback moves and learner uptake. The…

This article reports a quasi-experimental study of how error labeling in remediation exercises affects students' writing performance. Students in five sections of a course in written business communication composed the control group, whereas students in two sections composed the treatment group. On the first letter each group wrote early in the…

One of the most common problems for school music ensembles is the lack of rehearsal time to prepare for public performances. Because of this, music educators all too often feel they need to eliminate various parts of the rehearsal so that more time can be spent on rehearsing performance literature. However, this approach can be shortsighted…

Several studies have shown the difficulties students encounter in making sense of situations involving rate of change. This study concerns how students discover errors and refine their knowledge when working with rate of change. The part of the study reported here concerns the responses of four precalculus students to a task which asked them to…

An alternating treatments design was used to evaluate and compare the instructional effectiveness of six treatment packages in teaching receptive picture vocabulary to 12 mildly handicapped children (ages 3-6 years). Independent variables in the treatment packages included: least-to-most prompting, correction, group instruction, and individual…

The author has discovered that errors in grades often occur when scores are combined for final marks. These errors are not related to the grading individual assignments. Rather, they occur when teachers at all grade levels bring individual test and assignment scores together for the students' final grades. Unfortunately, professors of mathematics…

The handling of mistakes in the mathematics classroom is an area in which only little research is done so far. In mathematics education there are, in fact, several investigations about students' mistakes from a diagnostic perspective, but hardly any studies on the question how teachers react in concrete mathematics lessons. In this article…

This booklet examines principles for effective tutoring. An introduction defines tutoring. Ten sections present research findings and practical applications. Section 1, "Real-Life Goals," includes making consistent, regular time; targeting real- life goals; and exploring understanding. Section 2, "Question and Prompt,"…

A study investigated: (1) the distribution of learning styles of students of Japanese as a second language, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, (2) students' preferences for error correction in speaking and writing, as measured by a researcher-developed questionnaire, and (3) relationships between students' learning styles and their…

Reviews the relationship between pedagogy and interaction by analyzing extracts from second-language (L2) classrooms using a conversation analysis methodology. Points out that the relationship between the two is necessarily reflexive and concludes that it would be preferable for pedagogical recommendations to harmonize with the interactional…

Three essays on second-language instruction are presented. One describes a letter exchange between teachers as a means of exploring and understanding classroom and instructional issues; another (in French) describes a teacher's reflective examination of the immersion teaching experience; and a third reports on a classroom study of the…

Investigated the impact of integrated proofreading strategy training, which combined a computer-based spelling checker and student strategies, on the proofreading of three secondary students with learning disabilities. Students showed an increase in strategy use and percentage of spelling errors corrected on controlled proofreading materials and…