This article is about the benefits of self-assessment and its use in language education. The main focus is on "auto-evaluation" as a means of beginning class in an organized and motivating way. In contrast to "bell work" or other start-of-period activities on random topics, "auto-evaluation" involves asking questions that are closely tied to what…

This collaborative inquiry is based on university instructors' reflections on their experiences in negotiating and facilitating an international telecollaboration that connected their English as a second language and English as a foreign language students in Canada, Mexico, and Russia. The central themes that emerged from the instructors'…

At Joyce Public School (JPS) in the Greater Toronto Area, we are engaged in ongoing collaborative action research to develop pedagogical approaches to emergent literacies that engage multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal perspectives in complex interplay. Our research is grounded in the challenges children experience in acquiring literacy…

Motivational variables associated with second language acquisition are discussed. (Author/PMP)

Urges the combination of explanation and student deduction in the teaching of foreign languages. (LG)

Urges the immersion of language students into the culture of the target language by direct contact with other students of that culture. (LG)

New needs in foreign language teaching call for new approaches to teaching methods and materials. This article illustrates how a pragmatic reference framework, involving speech acts and communication situations, can be used to choose or develop learning materials, specifically for French as second language. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Summarizes the contents of four books on language teaching written by Harold Palmer between 1917 and 1924. Palmer's writings bridged some of the gap between theory and practice in language teaching. (CFM)

A study reveals that lexical borrowing in Spanish, from a variety of languages including Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Provencal, and Catalan, accounts for 41 percent of the basic Spanish vocabulary, with variation in source according to historical period. (MSE)

Examines teacher-student questioning exchanges and finds that students are rarely given sufficient time to formulate their answers before the teacher repeats, rephrases, or goes on to another student. Discusses some reasons for this behavior and suggests ways of making question asking and answering a more valuable learning experience in the second…

Revised version of a paper read at the Leadership Seminar sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Education, August 1973, Brock University, Ontario, Canada. (RL)

Describes cross-cultural study of conversational interaction as means to explain how much talking people do, when, why and how they talk and the topics they feel appropriate in conversation. Suggests conversational behavior from nonnative speakers reflects a difference in communicative style transferred from another language and culture.…

Discusses the importance of the nonverbal component in second language learning, and describes research on the role of kinesics in language. (AM)