Four teachers at Fort Lewis College, Colorado, use humor to send messages which "leap frog" resistance to the new and different, and go directly to the preconscious. The power in these humorous conceptual leaps is that the entering information sticks to the anger and passions of the human psyche, thus fostering retention. Linda Mack, a…

Educators commonly consider praise an example of positive reinforcement. They are correct, but they may also be incorrect because the effect upon students of educators administering praise is influenced by the students themselves. Two situations, at least, exist where praise may not bring about its intended effect. Praise may be inappropriate when…

All language teachers, even those committed to teaching language in context, must occasionally provide examples of grammatical or syntactic structures. When searching for effective examples, teachers can evaluate them by asking the following questions: (1) Considering the context and content, is the use of the target structure appropriate?; (2)…

Describes a technique used to become acquainted with students enrolled in a physical science class: having an informal, brown-bag lunch in the professor's office with students attending in groups of two or three. (PEB)

In teaching adults, it is important to break the automatism of traditional school procedures, and to create a climate of communication. The teacher should be primarily an "animator" who stimulates the group to take initiative in organizing and planning the course (their "apprenticeship"). (Text is in French.) (IFS/WGA)

Through a variety of methods teachers in a British teachers' college became aware of their own behavioral traits and how some could be controlled, others accentuated. Some of the exercises they used are discussed in this article. (Author/RK)

A discussion of the relationships between communication in a foreign language and metalinguistic thought given to that language focuses on formal French language learning by adults in their home countries. Experience with adult language learners suggests a resistance to grammatical explanations but an openness to explanations of meaning. It would…

Explicit classroom correction of the second language learner's errors is unnecessary, because errors are indications of the learner's current hypothesis, which may not necessarily match the target rule, or they may indicate that no hypothesis has yet been formulated by the learner. Explicit correction may be harmful because students can be pushed…

It is proposed that the role of teacher language in instructional effectiveness be included in teacher training as part of language across the curriculum. Of the three aspects of "teacher-talk" identified (physiological, interpersonal, and pedagogical), the pedagogical aspect is highlighted as the basis for a model of teacher-talk…

Good language teachers do not frighten students away by overwhelming them with the target language, but take pains to create student confidence in their ability to speak the language, beginning in the first class period. They present the language in such a way that students can interact with it immediately. This may mean that teachers must talk…

This research deals with a series of preliminary studies of the management of questions by second language learners of Swedish. Question management here refers to the ability to produce an utterance which successfully elicits a response from an interlocutor, and the ability to determine correctly when a response is required. The three exploratory…

Research Funded by the Central Fund for Research, Pennsylvania State University (Grant (Grant No. 151).

Ninety-three preservice elementary teachers volunteered to participate in an investigation designed to study and change their attitudes toward science teaching. The purpose of the investigation was to: (1) test a persuasive communication that had been designed using Hovland's framework, (2) question the relevance of the consistency principle for…