Whether grades earned in reading, mathematics, and language by 158 second graders when learning environmental accommodations were made in the areas of light, sound, temperature, design, and mobility differed from grades of control group students without these accommodations was studied. Control group students had higher mathematics and language…

Investigated the acquisition of base-generated topics in Mandarin Chinese by British students learning Chinese. The hypothesis is not confirmed that it would not be difficult for English speakers to acquire the base-generated topic in Chinese because in the acquisition of Chinese, English-speaking learners are exposed to positive evidence of…

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)…

Describes a principal's frustrating, but ultimately successful 3-year effort to convert a Virginia elementary school to a year-round schedule. Now in its third year, the school boasts students with higher standardized test scores, better attendance, and fewer discipline referrals than their traditional-calendar counterparts. (MLH)

Accountability and assessment have become grossly confused in today's educational climate. Although restructuring assessment is essential, the education community must communicate what tests measure, explain the different types of assessments utilized, and distinguish among several scoring techniques. Students should be taught effective…

The top-down, heavy-handed "Tougher Standards" movement has taken over many schools, with full support of business groups, politicians, and many journalists. Primary opponents are classroom teachers and parents. Raising standards translates into higher scores on poorly designed tests. Best teaching builds on actively learning students. (MLH)

Results for students in England in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are quite good, but some weaknesses in the performance of Year 9 students on the practical tasks in science and mathematics of the TIMSS that are not apparent when overall results are examined are discussed. (SLD)

Little cross-cultural empirical research has been devoted to expectations for academic performance of study abroad (SA) students, particularly in their foreign language (FL) reading. This study explored premobility English and French FL reading comprehension and strategy use in 177 European SA students of law and economics. Our concern was whether…

This paper reports the effects of communication strategy instruction on second language performance (communicative success, speech rate, message abandonment) and on the use of communication strategies (paraphrase). Two classes of adult immigrants, enrolled in a full-time intermediate proficiency ESL program at a post-secondary institution in…

While most school districts believe they understand grade equivalent scores, teachers, parents, and measurement specialists frequently misinterpret this apparently simple statistical expression. Echternacht's article describes the construction, application, and interpretation of grade equivalent scores from the test publisher's perspective.…

Using a new method, 48 children in an elementary school in Rome, Italy, were taught a foreign language (26 English, 22 German) and tested after three years. The authors attempt to explain the variation in test results in terms of the students' attention, memory, and phonetic discrimination. (CFM)

Scores from elementary school children and adult basic education students on the Adult Informal Reading Test were used to form distribution profiles for a number of tested variables. The profile notion was concluded to be a useful means for displaying the performance trends of published informal reading inventories. (FL)

The case typing, or student profile, method of assessing learning disabilities is discussed, along with guidelines for adequate assessment, obstacles to adequate assessment, the characteristics of good remedial instruction, and pitfalls of individualized education programs. (SEW)

Different instructions accompanied faculty/course evaluation questionnaires distributed in university courses (stratified by level and size). Instructions differed in information conveyed about use and disposition of results. Instructions containing information about administrative or course improvement use produced higher ratings than those given…