The chapters in "Explorations in Second Language Reading" reveal the importance of reading in the classroom and how instructors can use reading as a bridge to improve learners' other linguistic and interpersonal skills. Most significantly, each author prompts us to rediscover how enjoyable ESOL reading can be and how it can increase learner…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of engineering design classroom activities on conceptual change in science, and on attitudes toward and knowledge about engineering. Students were given a situated learning context and a rationale for learning science in an active, inquiry-based method, and worked in small collaborative…

This study investigated the following: (1) What are college students' perceptions of in-class activities or the way face-to-face class contact time is used? and (2) Do students' perceptions of the above differ based on amount of teaching experience they have had? Examined were the value or helpfulness of specific class activities in terms of…

There has been growing interest in linking the learning of Science with the literacies of Science and representations. Recent attention has been focused on learning theories that emphasise the socio-cultural and situated aspects of learning, and in particular the notion of learning as participation in a discourse community. This paper will…

This article examines the effect of a teacher's cultural representations and tacit communicative style on interactive practices in the classroom. We compare two second-grade classrooms constituted predominantly by Latino immigrant children and teachers with differing cultural representations of education. Through video and acoustic analyses of…

Reticence in foreign language classes has long been a challenge for both teachers and students. With the advent of globalization, there is a pressing need for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers to help reticent students develop the skills and confidence needed to take an active role in oral English lessons. This article reports on a…

In the Spring of 2000, Ruth Meyerowitz and Christine Zinni began collaborative efforts--inside and outside of academia--to enhance a course on The History of Working Women at SUNY Buffalo. Videotaping the oral histories of women labor leaders, they later teamed up with Michael Frisch and Randforce Associates--a research group at SUNY at Buffalo's…

All teachers know them--the students who sit in the back of the room and never make a peep. If prodded, they may reluctantly offer a comment or opinion, but they are so obviously uncomfortable about participating that a teacher may wonder if it is even worth trying to engage them. Are they unprepared or just shy? Do they lack ideas or merely need…

The majority of the teacher candidates in my methods classes come from a background that is different from the primarily African American students at my professional development school. Because these teacher candidates continue to be predominantly White middle-class females, the gap between their cultural comfort zone and their students' cultural…

This paper focuses on the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) as a tool for encouraging and supporting classroom dialogue. The authors' concern here is with the promotion of "dialogic" communication between teachers and students, which is now widely recognised as educationally valuable. In this study they investigated how teachers…

Designed to be used before and after attending a musical adaptation of Jonathan's Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" (performed by the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia), this cue sheet presents information about the performance and suggests activities that can be done with classmates, friends, or family members. Beginning with an illustration of…

This concise document is in two parts. The first part discusses the "cut-apart" (a story that has been cut apart in enough sections so that every person in the class has a part to read), dealing with reasons for using cut-aparts, guidelines for their construction, when to use them, and ways to use them. The second part is a 15-item…

This paper investigates the use of stand-up comedy routines to demonstrate principles of public speaking to college students in communication classes. The paper examines particular elements of the public speaking process, which include the structural elements of speeches: (1) introductions; (2) the body of the speech, including organization,…

The author lists the objectives of simulations and briefly mentions the types of games available and how they may be used in the classroom. (AG)