摘要:

This article describes a curricular innovation in a post‐intermediate EFL university course. The aim of the project was to build on the reading proficiency of the learners to improve their much less fully developed oral and written communication skills. An experimental course was developed around a connected series of group and individual projects on the topic of American Indians. The main psychopedagogical guidelines for the course were provided by the maturation process as described by the Russian psychologists Vigotsky (1962) and Leontiev (1981) and by the notion that shared knowledge is a prerequisite to purposeful and meaningful interaction (Castelfranchi and Parisi 1980, Hartmann 1980).University students from different study areas used reading materials to develop proficiency in speaking and writing. In the final project, a videotaped simulation of a court hearing involving an Indian land claim, each of the 18 students delivered a speech and participated in a debate. For this and the preceding projects in the course, the issues of teacher roles, learner roles, materials, skill transfer, and empathy‐building activities are discussed.There was considerable evidence for the validity of the three assumptions on which this pedagogical experiment was based: 1) It is feasible to reverse the canonical sequence of skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in language learning; 2) needs analysis is an ongoing process of learner observation which takes into account both cognitive and affective responses; and 3) language teaching can be usefully conceived as action‐based research aiming at learner‐specific pro

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586770

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In recent years, the development of communicative competence has become the explicit focus of numerous second language teaching programs. Although models of communicative competence and principles of communicative language teaching have been discussed extensively in the literature and a variety of communicative materials have been developed, very little research has been carried out to examine the relationship between actual classroom practices and the development of communicative competence.This article reports on the results of a study which was intended to validate an observation instrument designed to capture differences in the communicative orientation of L2 classroom interaction in a variety of settings. Thirteen classes in four different L2 programs were observed. The observation scheme used in the study contained categories derived from theories of communicative competence, from the literature on communicative language teaching, and from research in first and second language acquisition, which suggests a number of factors thought to influence the language learning process. These observation categories include features of communication typical of classroom interaction as well as of “natural” language outside the classroom. An analysis of the observation data revealed differences in the communicative orientation of the four types of classro

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586771

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A national sample of graduates of bilingual education programs at the doctoral, master's, and bachelor's levels was surveyed by mail and by telephone to determine what proportion of them had entered the field of bilingual education and to describe the jobs they held. Results of the survey, conducted under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, indicated that the vast majority of the graduates were applying their skills to the education of students with limited English proficiency. The majority of the graduates of bachelor's and master's programs were working as elementary teachers, 94 percent of them with Spanish‐speaking pupils. More than two thirds taught ESL. Three quarters of the teacher‐trainer graduates held positions involving either teacher training or administration. Those teaching in college and university settings taught broad‐based courses, while those training teachers in school‐district settings taught more functionally oriented courses. The survey results provide national baseline data on employment outcomes of bilingual education training p

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586772

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Because writing teachers invest so much time responding to student writing and because these responses reveal the assumptions teachers hold about writing, L1 writing researchers have investigated how composition teachers respond to their students' texts. These investigations have revealed that teachers respond to most writing as if it were a final draft, thus reinforcing an extremely constricted notion of composing. Their comments often reflect the application of a single ideal standard rather than criteria that take into account how composing constraints can affect writing performance. Furthermore, teachers' marks and comments usually take the form of abstract and vague prescriptions and directives that students find difficult to interpret.A study was undertaken to examine ESL teachers' responses to student writing. The findings suggest that ESL composition teachers make similar types of comments and are even more concerned with language‐specific errors and problems. The marks and comments are often confusing, arbitrary, and inaccessible. In addition, ESL teachers, like their native‐language counterparts, rarely seem to expect students to revise the text beyond the surface level.Such responses to texts give students a very limited and limiting notion of writing, for they fail to provide students with the understanding that writing involves producing a text that evolves over time. Teachers therefore need to develop more appropriate responses for commenting on student writing. They need to facilitate revision by responding to writing as work in progress rather than judging it as a finished prod

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586773

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A questionnaire relating to presumed good learning behaviors was administered to 37 students enrolled in an eight‐week intensive course in English as a second language in preparation for graduate study in the United States. The answers to the self‐report questionnaire were classified according to the students' cultural background (Asian versus Hispanic) and field of specialization (professional engineering/science versus social science/humanities) and related to gains on four English language proficiency measures: linguistic competence; auditory comprehension; overall oral proficiency; and communicative competence, conceptualized here primarily as the ability to convey information. Analyses indicated that while the Asian subjects engaged in fewer of the assumed “good” learning behaviors than the Hispanics, they tended to make greater gains in linguistic competence and communicative competence. On the other hand, the Hispanic students made more progress in overall oral proficiency and in auditory comprehension. Examination of the relationships between specific behaviors and second language learning gains revealed an interesting split: Some behaviors were associated with conscious learning, while others were related to acquisition and gains in general communicative competence. Results indicate that caution in prescribing good learning behaviors is warranted. Considerable further research is needed to explain which behaviors are helpful for learners at various levels and to relate these behaviors to current second language learning t

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586774

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The intellect and emotions of teachers as well as students can be stimulated by sharing literary texts. In teaching a narrative poem, the logical place to start is with the story—thewho, what, when, where, and, since poetry encapsulates human emotions and motivations, thehowandwhy. Cultural references can be clarified through notes, pictures, and guiding questions. Once comfortable with the surface meaning of a poem, students will be ready to explore deeper layers of meaning by considering figurative language and other poetic strategies. In classes where composition is a focus, writing assignments that prompt rereading and reflection help students to extend their understanding and thus their literary pleasur

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586775

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Reading comprehension items are valid to the extent that they measure what subjects have understood of the stimulus material. This article reports an empirical analysis of two administrations of two reading tests: the first time, without the reading passages, and the second time, with the passages. Data from the two administrations were used to calculate the passage dependency of each test, that is, the extent to which questions can be answered without reading the texts upon which the questions are based. The two tests in this research,Davis Reading Test(Davis and Davis 1956) andCooperative English Tests(Educational Testing Service 1960), exhibited little passage dependency. The stability of item types across the two presentation conditions is discussed, and a hierarchy of item‐type difficulty is established using latent trait measurement logits of difficulty. The results of this study suggest that classroom teachers should examine commercially available tests carefully for passage dependency. Furthermore, in constructing reading tests, teachers should avoid writing items that test general knowledge. Instead, teachers should strive to write items that test memory organization and that reveal whether or not inferences have been draw

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586776

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586777

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586778

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0039-8322    

DOI:10.2307/3586779

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY