A perennial challenge for developmental educators is to upgrade students' skills over many years without losing their own sense of professional dedication and momentum. Two instructional techniques that can be of use to developmental educators in meeting this challenge are interactive errands and dialogue journals. These activities enable students to transfer classroom learning into the community; bring students' out-of-class knowledge to bear upon classroom interactions; break down students' academic, cultural, linguistic, and social barriers; and enhance instructors' feelings of self-worth. Interactive errands are assignments which require students to make contact with people outside of class, induce their contacts to perform some predetermined behavior, and analyze the encounters afterward with instructors and fellow students. Examples of interactive errands are "human bingo," which requires students to get signatures from people in the community who fit certain requirements; "team quests," which require students to find information about historic sites; and collecting and analyzing billboards, advertising slogans, and bumper stickers in terms of their cultural significance. Unlike other journals, dialogue journals are shuttled back and forth from student to teacher at regular intervals in a reciprocal process in which both instructor and student share feelings and ideas respectfully, individually, and repeatedly. Students are free to write as much as they please on any topic, knowing that their instructor will respond fully and individually. Both dialogue journals and interactive errands encourage frequent, genuine communication and are relevant to students' lives outside and inside the classroom. (Author/EJV)