This document contains the May and November 2000 issues of "New Horizons in Education," with articles in English and Chinese. The May issue includes the following articles: "A Key to Successful Environmental Education: Teacher Trainees' Attitude, Behaviour, and Knowledge" (Kevin Chung Wai Lui, Eric Po Keung Tsang, Sing Lai…

Acquisition of pragmatic competence by second language learners in the target language environment is examined, drawing on a study of learners of English as a Second Language in Dublin (Ireland). The hypothesis presented is that learners who perceive social or cultural distance between themselves and the target language culture will have greater…

Research studies on how adults learn and develop second-language reading competence were considered in the context of a componential theory of reading. In particular, C. A. Perfetti's Verbal Efficiency Theory (VET) was used as a framework in which to organize and evaluate the studies' contribution to the field of second-language reading. The…

Enrollment in a foreign language course increasingly is becoming an essential part of college students' programs of study. As a result, there has been an influx of students with diverse backgrounds, interests, and aspirations enrolling in foreign language courses in order to fulfill degree requirements. Unfortunately, many students underachieve in…

This document consists of three issues of a newsletter published during 1996 and 1997. Issues contain current events articles in Spanish and classroom language learning activities based on those articles. The articles are brief; topics include: the Beatles; the route of Don Quixote; pets; the climate, architecture, history and food of Castile and…

Reflexivity, defined as the self-applied process of learning, the use of self and others as active signs in the learning process, is examined through relevant literature in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) instruction. When EFL learners are encouraged to stand back and examine the way they learn and why they learn this way, reflexivity…

This paper discusses the use of francophone films produced in French-speaking areas outside France in the second-language classroom, using several films from African countries and Canada as examples. The idea is that such films give students more than an abstract idea of a francophone region outside France, and represent large views of language…

Responding to a call to action by California's state leaders to make reading instruction in the early grades a top priority in the public schools, this booklet discusses California's new K-3 reading program. It begins with a discussion of what prompted this new focus on reading, and then discusses the four major elements of a balanced reading…

Noting that little in language can be understood without taking into consideration the wider picture of communicative purpose, content, context, and audience, this book address practical uses of various approaches to discourse analysis. Several assumptions run through the chapters: knowledge is socially constructed; the manner in which language…

This document consists of the four issues of this periodic bibliography published during 1997. All items listed are related to second language instruction and include recently-published resource materials, instructional materials, and literature on instructional methods and techniques, including research. Each citation contains basic bibliographic…

Two elements of constructivist pedagogy warrant attention with respect to second language (L2) learning: collaborative dialogue and learner decision-making. These two elements in instruction bring about experiential and task oriented classrooms. The constructivist approach to the L2 classroom foregrounds conceptual development focused on…

This paper reviews recent research on children's literacy development and learning, focusing on "emergent literacy" theory. Advocates of emergent literacy believe that children learn to read by reading and to write by writing, and that children are active constructors and investigators of their own knowledge. Recent studies have suggested that…

Test data from 200 examinees from the Spanish Teacher Certification Examination and 75 examinees from the French Teacher Certification Examination were used in a study of scale drift in sequentially equated test forms. Using sampling with replacement, 1,000 samples of 100 examinees each for Spanish and 1,000 samples of 50 each for French were…

This paper contributes to the growing debate in Japan about how to teach Japanese students to speak English effectively. It is argued that there must be a shift from learning about the English language to using English to learn and communicate about topics that are interesting and relevant to students' lives in Japan. Role playing is an effective…

The papers in this volume are all phonological in nature, and all but one of them are written within the framework of Optmality Theory. This volume includes work on a variety of languages: American Indian (Kiowa, Koasati, Shoshoni), Austronesian (Muna and Nancowry), Bantu (Tsonga), and Indo European (English and Spanish). The following articles…