A teacher describes her initiation into secondary school English literature instruction, adoption of the whole-language approach before it had a name, and development of a curriculum with limited resources and minimal guidance. The author finds many classrooms still struggling with conventional instruction, and argues that the whole-language…

A teacher experimented to determine whether ninth-grade nonreaders could progress in an Israeli English class for weak learners. All students worked on reading and listening skills, with nonreaders focused on vocabulary building and learning grammar in context; for readers, grammar instruction was more abstract. Students worked at their own paces.…

In developing a college English course on reading and writing in the information age that would make use of the Internet and cyberspace-based science fiction, a professor encountered considerable resistance from colleagues who did not understand the language and concepts being used and who worried about crossing the boundaries into other…

Discusses how a teacher of sixth- and seventh-grade primarily Mexican immigrants: (1) models being a second-language learner by working at Spanish; (2) provides an enjoyable school experience; (3) learns about students' culture and gives it respect; (4) seeks a detailed picture of where each English learner is academically; and (5) cultivates a…

Argues that it is important for Black students and for all students to understand that Black English is indeed a language with rules, beauty, and power so that they come to respect it, respect its history, and respect their own bilingualism. (SR)

An alternative high school teacher examined whether her students could be motivated to achieve higher performance levels, testing a theory that performance would improve if students were asked to meet detailed standards rather than be rewarded for class attendance and assignment completion. The experiment had mixed results. (Author/SM)

Examines what happened when college students enrolled in an adolescent literature class met young readers encountering young adult literature in a Book Club setting. Describes this inquiry-based partnership between a university classroom and junior high and elementary classrooms, and the accompanying challenges and benefits for preservice…

Describes how the author's eighth-grade students went on a yearlong search to find the literature of the twenty-first century. Describes how the students read widely, chose their own books, evaluated them according to topic questions loosely based on the theme of breaking stereotypes, kept and shared journals, and carried out projects of their…

This study investigated professional thinking about pedagogical aspects of technology use in mainstream classroom practice. It focuses on the systems of ideas which frame teacher accounts of the successful use of computer-based tools and resources in the core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science at secondary-school level. These accounts…

One of the aims of Maori-medium education is to address Maori language loss. One of the challenges facing Maori-medium educators is to identify configurations that acknowledge the substantive importance of English language instruction without detracting from the priority that must be given to the regeneration of the Maori language. Issues…

According to Columbia University social psychologist Carol Dweck, teachers may find some answers to students' ways of thinking if they consider students' views of "intelligence." In "Messages That Motivate: How Praise Molds Students' Beliefs, Motivation, and Performance (in Surprising Ways)," Dweck maintains that academic motivation and…

The five-paragraph theme, while widely used by writing instructors, has often been criticized for its tendency to focus on a rigid formula rather than a writer's ideas. This study investigates the decision of an early-career teacher, Leigh, to teach her eighth-grade students the five-paragraph model in the context of a state-mandated writing…

June Jordan, a prolific and most-published African American essayist and poet and a professor in the African American Studies department at the University of California, Berkeley, ventured to challenge the institutionalized Ivory Tower traditions and subsequently established a university program called Poetry for the People (P4P) in 1991. Such…

Computer-based training can be effective in improving second language learners' perceptions and productions of segmental speech contrasts. However, because most previous studies have addressed specific theoretical problems in speech learning, an impact on pedagogy has hardly been felt. Research participants are commonly subjected to rigid research…

Given the cost of running second or foreign language teacher training programs with a high number of in-school placement hours, the selection of candidates who are likely perform well academically and complete their studies is an important consideration. The purpose of the present study was to examine the potential offered by vocabulary profiles…