The report, entirely in French, describes Alberta's curriculum for eighth-year French native language instruction, as revised in 1998. An introductory section offers background information on the curriculum's design, links between the core curriculum and French native language instruction, underlying principles of language instruction, the…

A course in scientific English for science researchers and advanced civil engineering students in Belgium has a central problem--the heterogeneous nature of the group and lack of common research experience around which to build a curriculum. An attempt to overcome this difficulty by using two logical problems for discussion is presented. (MSE)

Examines the morpho-syntax of task-based interaction and reports some possible grammatical consequences of interaction in split and shared information tasks undertaken by adult second language learners of English. Results indicate that communication tasks for language learning can be designed to influence the use of particular linguistic…

Investigated the effects of the number of tokens in the conceptual representation of the to-be-uttered subject noun phrase in experiments in Dutch and French, in which subject-verb agreement errors were induced. Findings revealed a distributivity effect in both languages, supporting an account in which neither null nor post-verbal subjects are the…

Examines the English vowel productions of native speakers of Italian who immigrated to Canada between 2 and 23 years of age and of native English speakers from the same community. Findings reveal an increase in perceived accentedness on every vowel as a function of increasing age of arrival as well as high intelligibility scores for English vowels…

Encourages caregivers to engage children in oral language activities that will help children develop skills necessary for reading and writing. Examines: (1) oral language as a predecessor to reading; (2) talking leading to learning; and (3) rich oral environment as a scaffold. Concludes with examples of oral-language activities for infants,…

Investigation of the monitoring behavior of Turkish children speaking Dutch as a second language found that subjects' use repairs increased or decreased with a certain age. A positive relationship was found between monitoring use and subjects' cognitive skills and second language proficiency. (27 references) (Author/CB)

Describes the types of violence found in school and classroom contexts and recommends guidelines to form proactive and reactive strategies for teachers and administrators. Demonstrates the language for rules to establish order and deter violence and to use with students exhibiting violent behavior. (FMW)

Explores the problems of international teaching assistants (ITA) in graduate education programs, stemming mostly from cultural, language, and educational philosophy differences. A case study of one university's attempts to investigate problems connected with ITA training identifies objectives for selection, admission, training, and retention of…

Evaluated two training methods that might be used to increase Mandarin adults' accuracy in identifying final /t/ and /d/ as stops in English. Results indicate that the effects of training generalized to words that were not used in training, and subjects maintained the effects of same/different training better than those of identification training.…

Reviews second-language teaching methods and classroom practices in Arab countries as well as the general proficiency of secondary school leavers. The article proposes a teaching method in which the learning activities play a key role. Results of the implementation of this method are discussed. (18 references) (Author/CK)

Over a school year, researchers had first graders talk and write about paintings, picture books, and films while participating in a program that introduced them to visual literacy. Researchers found that, over the school year, children's choices of pictures and volume of language changed and that urban and suburban children differed. (SM)

The spoken language occurring when primary school children work in groups at the computer was examined. Findings suggest that discourse accompanying highly structured software conforms well to the initiation/response/follow-up (IRF) structure, with the computer often taking the initiating role. The more open-ended the program, the more…

Considers theory and hypotheses about the relationship between preschool experiences and literacy outcomes that are based on the longitudinal Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development project, now in its fourth year of data collection. Also discussed are the sample, data collection techniques, and types of analysis being used in the…

Eighty-nine experienced teachers of reading, language arts, and special education were found to understand too little about language structure to be able to provide sufficient instruction. The teachers subsequently took a course focusing on phonemic awareness, spoken-written language relationships, and spelling and reading behavior, and judged…