Investigates effects of two advance organizers--question previewing and vocabulary preteaching--on Taiwanese college students' listening comprehension of English language videotapes. Results suggest the group exposed to a combined treatment of vocabulary preteaching and question viewing between two video viewings outperformed the groups who…

Provides general design suggestions for developing a Web-based online course for distance education in higher education. Highlights include faculty training and preparation; course structure; course outline for students; weekly modules; fostering a community of learners; required papers; and testing. (LRW)

Discusses the reliability and validity of different measures of lexical richness in various language data research and computer simulations, and examines the behavior of these measures in spontaneous speech data of first language and second language children learning Dutch, aged 4 to 7, compared with their lexical abilities as measured by tests.…

Discusses the action research conducted on whether the use of conducting patterns will not only help students understand meter, but also assist them in grasping certain expressive qualities of music. Finds that the posttest showed a 10 percent gain overall in the understanding of meter, tempo, dynamics, and style. (CMK)

Investigates the discourse coherence of school-aged children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Children with SLI were found to be significantly impaired in the areas of topic maintenance, event sequencing, explicitness, conjunctive cohesion, and fluency. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed. (Author/ER)

At the heart of No Child Left Behind's accountability system is the requirement that states test nearly every public school student in grades 3-8 and in one high school grade in reading and math. The magnitude of NCLB's testing requirements, the law's demanding deadlines, insufficient federal funding, and other factors have produced an undesirable…

This study compared the test scores and time required by high school students who are blind, sighted, or have low vision to complete tests administered in written and oral formats. The quantitative results showed that the blind students performed better on multiple-choice tests in braille and needed more time while taking tests in braille. The…

This study examined several risk factors--negative life events (NLE), hopelessness, and depressive symptoms--believed to commonly precipitate suicide ideation in college students. A total of 345 undergraduates participated in the study. Students completed four self-report questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to construct a…

This article describes two projects based on Robert J. Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence and designed to provide theory-based testing for university admissions. The first, Rainbow Project, provided a supplementary test of analytical, practical, and creative skills to augment the SAT in predicting college performance. The Rainbow…

This paper reports on the "usability" element of a study examining the development of a multimedia Learning Environment (LE) for Special Educational Needs (SEN) students, designed to match learner requirements to learning materials, as elicited from cognitive and accessibility profiles drawn up by teachers and learning support assistants. In…

This interview took place at the Language Testing Research Colloquium in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (at the Chateau Laurier Hotel on July 21, 2005), at which Professor Bernard Spolsky was presented with the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate/International Language Testing Association Lifetime Achievement Award. The conference…

Aims: To characterise the cognitive, motor, and language skills of toddlers and preschoolers who had been physically abused and to obtain concurrent MRIs of the brain. Methods: A between groups design was used to compare of sample of 19 children, aged 14-77 months, who had been hospitalised for physical abuse with no evidence of neurological…

A recent study suggests that lesions to all major areas of the cholinergic basal forebrain in the rat (medial septum, horizontal limb of the diagonal band of Broca, and nucleus basalis magnocellularis) impair a spatial working memory task. However, this experiment used a surgical technique that may have damaged cerebellar Purkinje cells. The…

This article will first provide a theoretical overview of the problems that learners experience in distance education. It will also deal with some of the implications for course design. Problems associated with study through a distance education institution include loneliness, time management, examination skills and the format of the study…

The aim of the present study was to examine whether Chinese dyslexic children had difficulties learning English as a second language given the distinctive characteristics of the two scripts. Twenty-five Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia and 25 normally achieving children were tested on a number of English vocabulary,…