The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of DISCOVER, a performance-based assessment, in identifying gifted students in Lebanon. DISCOVER is grounded in Gardner's MI theory and consists of tasks involving problem-solving and creative abilities. The sample consisted of 49 middle-class 5-th graders, with a mean age of 10.2…

Although there is considerable variability, most individuals with Down syndrome have mental retardation and speech and language deficits, particularly in language production and syntax and poor speech intelligibility. This article describes research findings in the language and communication development of individuals with Down syndrome, first…

Just as minority spoken languages borrow from surrounding majority languages, so British Sign Language (BSL) borrows signs from English. BSL may borrow from both spoken and written English, but here we focus on the processes involved in borrowing from the written English word, using the manual alphabet. The end result of borrowing depends on an…

This paper reports the results of an experiment with 21 Italian children (age 2;8-5;11) and 29 U.S. children (age 2;7-5;9) who were tested on their knowledge of verb raising to C in main WH-questions, an obligatory movement process in adult Italian and English. Along the lines of recent movement and feature checking theories, it is proposed that,…

This thesis attempts to explain, in light of contrastive rhetoric, the Chinese preference of set phrases and the American disapproval of cliche. It asserts that because society and culture shape the way individuals use their language, Chinese and Americans hold different rhetorical expectations and observe different conventions in forming their…

This book offers 80 original chants for teaching children to play with language, discover their ownership of language, and experiment with language. The book states that chants can provide a strategy that develops reading skills, ease in dramatic situations, sidebars in art work, communication abilities, awareness of self and environment, and…

An oral activity designed to help prepare college students of English as a second language for assignments and rhetorical strategies for essay writing is described. The activity, which comprises several tasks and can require up to two class periods, requires students to compare and contrast a painting and a poem that have a common theme or aspect.…

A high school library media specialist uses storytelling regularly in her oral presentations for students. For an audience of adolescents, stories need to be selected carefully and edited to keep the action moving. Music and character voices are effective in capturing and holding teenagers' attention. Storytelling is a tool for curriculum…

A study investigated the ways in which the background of six Spanish-English bilinguals has affected their attitudes toward the two languages and the transfer of skills between first and second languages, especially as it might relate to writing instruction. A review of literature looks at studies of linguistic and social aspects of the Hispanic…

Spoken narratives as a genre usually show literary stylistic features. Written/literary registers are characterized by lexical density whereas spoken/colloquial genres are characterized by the complex combination of simple clauses into clause complexes. It has been observed that when aiming at informationally dense speech, people often hesitate…

An analysis of oral and written discourse focuses on the hypothesis that marked structures serve to code discourse boundaries and signal the advent of new discourse units. The hypothesis is examined against three independent sets of data: (1) discourse from a larger study, in which subjects provided oral or written narrative descriptions, in…

When faced with having to assign a grade to a student's oral proficiency in a small group discussion, how can teachers consistently evaluate each student? Because a student's adeptness at a foreign language can vary from one ability to another, it is unfair to evaluate his or her performance solely by grammatical and lexical accuracy or by any…

A mounting degree of language contact between the linguistically related varieties of Frisian and Dutch might undermine the structural integrity of Frisian. Focusing on the suffixation paradigm, this study explores how and to what extent this is occurring. Data gathered for this research is part of a larger project concerning Frisian as a first…

A study investigated the relative effectiveness of French second language vocabulary learning when presented in two contexts: video, with attention to extralinguistic factors, or audio, with focus on linguistic factors alone. Four student groups (n=137 university students) were formed from existing classes: experimental with video treatment;…

Created under the assumption that children develop essential language skills through meaningful interaction with other individuals, this book takes into account many of the current trends in teaching elementary language. Among the primary trends addressed are the social constructivist theory, embedded assessment, the interdisciplinary approach to…