This study describes the interactions of three adult-child reading partnerships in a program that matches corporate volunteers with "at risk" students for weekly hour-long story reading sessions. Using discourse analysis within a sociocultural framework, the researcher identified variation in the way these partners were constructing the act and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the language ideologies--the assumptions about the nature of language, language variation, and language learning--reflected in a widespread daily editing activity often known as Daily Oral Language or Daily Language Practice. Through a yearlong ethnographic study of grammar instruction in three urban,…

Two exercises were developed to demonstrate how Mikhail Bakhtin's conception of novelistic language and creative interpretation are instrumental in teaching students to read creatively. The text chosen for these exercises was "Crime Against Nature" by Minnie Bruce Pratt. According to Bakhtin's scheme, a fiction can be read most…

This study investigated the application of the concept of "discourse colony," a written text type, to the analysis of discourse used in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) testing and teacher education. The discourse colony includes a diverse collection of discourse types whose cohesion comes from their predictable organization (e.g., timetables,…

As background to an argument for purposive reintegration of discourse study, this paper examines the concept of explanatory discourse as it developed within the Western rhetorical tradition. Following a discussion of the rise of a rhetoric of explanation, the first section cites the roots of the explanatory pedagogy developing during the first…

A method of training pupils to read for total comprehension by an analytical approach is proposed. Specific techniques are suggested. (RM)

A study investigated whether comprehension of a text could be enhanced by careful structuring of the lesson elements surrounding it. One group of ten second grade children received a reading lesson as prescribed in a basal series that directed attention to irrelevant content while failing to highlight consistently important story elements. A…

Providing contextual cues leads to more effective learning than depth of semantic processing activity. However, the positive effects of contextual cues are reduced when the subject must search for the theme during the learning activity, as opposed to having it presented before the passage. (CP)

Reaction of the target language speaker to the second language learner's errors may play an important role in developing awareness of norms of correctness. A model for corrective feedback has been developed. Its use helps isolate ambiguities, highlights features of corrective interaction effective in eliciting correct performance. (CHK)

Presents eight teachers' methods for helping students analyze political rhetoric in an election year. (ARH)

Examines the rhetorical situation of the modern freshman composition student in America, in light of nineteenth-century developments in rhetoric pedagogy and discourse classification conventions. (MS)

Discusses whether the methods of linguistic analysis can help students of English as a second language (ESL) as they struggle with a complex piece of creative writing. Argues that stylistic analysis, instead of aiding an ESL student's reading, actually impedes it because it is alien to the spirit in which persons read. (SED)

Shows how teachers can use concepts from discourse analysis to help students who have difficulty in understanding the relationships between and within sentences. (EL)

This article reports on the first four colloquia at Neuchatel. Research in the areas of discourse analysis, the discovery of interpretive processes, and communicative competence should shape the evolution of second language teaching. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)

This report offers a brief summary of a master thesis that had the purpose to study the way conflict management educators write and think about "conflict." Using a critical discourse analysis (a la Foucault) of 22 conflict resolution manuals for adults and children (U.S., Canadian, Australian), and using a selected sample of those most available…