Response cards are a teaching and learning tool designed to increase active student response during whole-class instruction. Response cards allow multiple students to write their answers on a white board and get feedback from the teacher during each learning trial. This work is a quantitative synthesis of the English-language student-level…

Transcripts of writing conferences and of interviews with students illustrate both the changes in the way students evaluate writing and the teaching strategies that sharpen evaluative skills. (RL)

Discusses the recommendations made by compositionists from 1950 to 1980 to apply the findings of linguists to composition instruction. Argues that the noncontextual orientation of modern linguistics renders it insufficient as a comprehensive source of theoretical or practical assistance in composition instruction. (MG)

The written English vocabulary of 72 deaf elementary school students of various proficiency levels in American Sign Language (ASL) was compared with the performance of 60 hearing English-as-a-second-language (ESL) speakers and 61 hearing monolingual speakers of English, all of similar age. Students were asked to retell "The Tortoise and the Hare"…

This paper shows how a traditional story can be used to teach an indigenous language, and how the inclusion of writing can help students learn the language effectively. Hupa people have told Coyote stories for thousands of years. Such Hupa stories are incorporated in Hupa language instruction using the Language Proficiency Method, which involves a…

Arguing that being "literate" carries a different expectation from even the recent past, this book asserts that schools must explicitly teach the nature of language, and that students must be given clear criteria for, and support in, achieving excellence in controlling the different types of written language used in their various fields…

The ability of foreign students to read non-scientific material efficiently is important for rapid social and cultural integration. This report describes the reading comprehension section of a French language course aimed at foreign students at the Nancy Science Faculty. Exercises are presented which cover morpho-syntactic, communicative and…

The present study concentrated on the writing vocabulary of Mexican American children (grades 1-8) in order to answer the following questions: (1) Are there regional differences in the writing vocabulary of Mexican American Children? (2) Is one justified in translating directly from English into Spanish? (3) Is there a need for the development of…

The 1963 language arts project in Wagon Mound, New Mexico, was designed to make administrators and teachers aware of and concerned about the problems of teaching English to Spanish-speaking children in grades 1-12. General and specific objectives and instructional techniques stressed improvement of oral and written communication. An analysis of…

This study tries to establish a baseline for the teaching of the French subjunctive in the United States and to encourage further scholarship by summarizing past activities. Distinctive subjunctive structures were extracted from 18 French newspapers and magazines and 15 recorded, non-directed interviews with native informants, thus providing…

What lessons can be learned from relevant research in vocabulary- and language-learning strategy training as well as from comparative studies on learning Oriental languages, which could have helpful applications to language learners from Kanji-background countries? Could both mnemonic and semantic field keyword approaches help these learners by…

Summarizes key insights from the author's studies of literacy. Makes three recommendations which are designed to explore curriculum as a potential for language learning. (MG)

Discusses problems with correct verb use in the written work of students studying French. Examiners' reports indicate that the standard of verb use is declining, while the literature reveals that verb learning has inherent difficulties. The article critiques computer-assisted instruction and proposes a new approach. (23 references) (Author/CK)

American students are exposed to many different romanization systems when learning Chinese. The most important systems include Pinyin, Zhuyin fuhao, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzhy, and the Yale system, to name just a few. The Pinyin system, which is built on the English alphabet, is the official transliteration system of mainland China. The Zhuyin…

Viewing writing as both a form of language learning and an intellectual skill, this book presents essays on how writers acquire trusted inner voices and the roles schools and teachers can play in helping student writers in the learning process. The essays in the book focus on one of three topics: the language of instruction and how response and…