Results of two experiments revealed a significant correlation between function-word predictability and reader enjoyment and a strong correlation between content-word unpredictability and reader enjoyment. (FL)

Building on the author's groundbreaking work in "Building Superheroes," this book traces the influence of a wide-ranging set of "textual toys" from children's lives--church and hip-hop songs, rap music, movies, TV, traditional jump-rope rhymes, the words of professional sports announcers and radio deejays--upon school learning…

This curriculum guide, almost entirely in Spanish, outlines adult basic education course content to be taught in a Spanish-language high school equivalency program. The course is designed to help students prepare for the General Educational Development (G.E.D.) exam in written expression. The guide begins with a Spanish skills placement test.…

This survey of the world's written languages consists of a series of historical sketches of different languages, each including a table of signforms in their standard order and their variations, but focusing primarily on how the sounds of the language are represented in writing. A brief text in the language(s) the script is used for is also…

The four issues of this journal, written entirely in Spanish, are intended for reading teachers. The first issue focuses on the role of school in the development of readers and writers and contains articles discussing the results of an investigation into the validity of the idea of "level" when measuring students' comprehension of…

A study investigated: (1) the distribution of learning styles of students of Japanese as a second language, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, (2) students' preferences for error correction in speaking and writing, as measured by a researcher-developed questionnaire, and (3) relationships between students' learning styles and their…

Dissertation on which this article is based is to be published, in a condensed form, as C.I.E. Research Monograph No. 7 by Oxford University Press (India). (VM)

The communicative method of language instruction is compared with other, generalized methods currently used, in terms of content, the variety of forms taught to express the same thought, oral and written language, emphasis on form versus message content, the nonverbal element, and the teaching of language context. (MSE)

Walter D. Edmunds created convincing characters of the Iroquois without pretending to know them. Carl Carmer was less interested in digging for the truth about Indians than in writing a story. Edmund Wilson perceived the Iroquois world view intuitively in his writing, overcoming any obstacle to get at the truth. (Author/LC)

Presents discussions that have taken place in an electronic forum by language lab professionals to discuss issues relevant to their everyday work. The discussions covered focus on the practicality of digital audio lab, good programs for instructional technology, "Systeme-D /Atajo" writing assistant programs for French and Spanish, and LCD…

This article describes Electronic Networks for Interaction (ENFI), a system providing a local area computer network within a classroom of deaf students to provide real-time written communication and allow students a variety of opportunities to use writing for natural communication purposes. (DB)

Presents a contrastive text-linguistic study of rhetorical differences between texts written by academics with different cultural backgrounds, but using as a means of expression the same language: English. Results indicate that Anglo-American writers use more metatext than Spanish-speaking writers, seem more concerned with orienting the reader,…

Reports on research describing similarities and differences between expert and novice writing in the problem-solution pattern, a frequent rhetorical pattern of technical academic writing. A corpus of undergraduate student writing and one containing professional writing consisted of 80 and 60 recommendation reports, respectively, with each corpus…

Discusses the need for treating students learning to write in English as a Second Language (ESL) courses with respect. Argues that ESL writers need to be understood, placed in suitable learning contexts, provided with appropriate instruction, and evaluated fairly. (nine references) (CK)

Presents a survey of English-as-a-Second-Language students (n=142) for their preferences of writing prompt on essay tests and for other factors relating to their choices such as perceived difficulty of a topic. Findings reveal that these students, while not alert to potentially helpful syntactic clues in prompts, are probably using appropriate…