Many would argue that the state of urban science education has been static for the past several decades and that there is little to learn from it. Rather than accepting this deficit perspective, this book strives to recognize and understand the successes that exist there by systematically documenting seven years of research into issues salient to…

This case study examines the cross-cultural learning experiences of two Chinese students at a major university in the Eastern United States. The study participants were a graduate student and his wife, both of whom had graduated from prestigious Chinese universities. At the time of the study, they had been in the United States for less than two…

Study results indicated that there were no lasting differences in the English expressive syntactic skills of 57 junior kindergarten through third-grade English-speaking children enrolled in a French immersion program, relative to the English monolingual subjects who made up the normative data. (Author/CM)

Addresses three major issues in the training of minority counselor education students: (1) sensitivity to client; (2) cultural differences in counseling; and (3) relationships between the counselor trainee and his/her clients, professors, classmates, and agency-placement supervisors. Offers suggestions for redesigning counseling programs.…

Reports the results of a cross-sectional study of 67 short autobiographical essays by U.S. students of Russian at 4 levels. Linguistic measures differentiating the groups included fluency and syntactic fluency, but not accuracy. The article recommends further research into second- and foreign- language learning writing that accounts for different…

Discusses the integration of innovative technologies into the K-12 curriculum and its impact on instructional programs for linguistically and culturally diverse students. Describes the debate over whether the culture of computing is inclusive or exclusive, examining: educational technology standards; information technology and fluency; speech…

Examination of memorization strategies, cerebral dominance and lateralizations, and other characteristics of two adults who acquired second language fluency after puberty supported hypotheses concerning neurocognitive flexibility as a substrate underlying talent for second language learning. (CB)

A model of service delivery for elementary students who stutter is described, emphasizing the integration of fluency-shaping and stuttering modification techniques. The treatment program includes procedures for helping children to understand and identify fluency problems, techniques for teaching and integrating fluency-shaping and stuttering…

Introduces a computer-assisted language-learning system called L2tutor that is designed to provide an immersion experience to travelers before they leave on a trip to a country where a different language is spoken. The learner takes part in a fully mixed-initiative dialog with the system to gain fluency and hone vocabulary and grammatical skills.…

Examines proposals for task-based approaches to instruction, reviews relevant research, investigates developments in cognitive psychology, proposes a framework for the implementation of task-based instruction drawing upon relevant theory, and organizes the methods to implement such instruction so as to minimize problems and maximize goal…

Focuses on using the community as an environment in which to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) in a socially responsive way. The article points out that many ESL classes exist for social reasons and that these reasons need to be foregrounded for effective language instruction to proceed. The article also discusses the role played by course…

Describes the evaluation of Computronics Corporations'"Targumatic" (Hebrew into English), a PC-based machine translation system running under DOS, and shows how each problem and potential obstruction to learning can be overcome through discovery procedures using a set of tools and procedures called the "learning algorithm." (22…

Examines the definition of fluency in the literature, and proposes a qualitative and quantitative approach that may be used to produce a "thick" description of language use for use in rating scale construction. The article suggests that validity considerations must be addressed in the construction phase of developing scales. (69 references)…

Study with first grade teachers and students explored the impact of book-rich classroom environments and home rereading on reading motivation, comprehension, and fluency. Results showed enhanced comprehension for book-rich classrooms, both with and without a home component; home rereading increased reading motivation and promoted parental…

Discusses computer-mediated communication (CMC) and computer-assisted language learning and explains how second language learners become communicatively fluent through a text-based CMC setting. Highlights include how asynchronous and synchronous CMC can support learners' cognitive processes; and models for combining text-based CMC with spoken…