The academic records of over 2,000 students who were required as a result of their national percentile scores on the Cooperative English Examination to take a remediation course in reading and writing skills during their first semester at Queensborough Community College (New York) were compared to the academic records achieved by an equal number…

This article investigates the effects of the maintenance of Japanese as a heritage language on English and overall academic achievement. The interrelationships among Japanese oral and writing proficiency, SAT I Verbal, SAT I, and high school grade point average (GPA) were examined. The participants were 31 second generation Japanese-American…

After two years of investigation, a panel appointed to advise the College Entrance Examination Board and Educational Testing Service on the recent change in Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores concluded that the 14-year score decline is a complex phenomenon, yielding neither simple explanations nor easy solutions. As a result of looking at the…

This study is an exploration of the "sense of community" in a college classroom. The construct was successfully developed by incorporating six variables borrowed from neighborhood community research. Sense of community scores significantly predicted students' classroom attitudes, perception of learning, and actual performance on course exams.

Reports an action research project at the State College of Education in Vienna, Austria, in which a sociology course for prospective teachers used English as the language of instruction. Evaluation indicates benefits for the students, the institution, and the instructor. Stresses the importance of institutional support for such efforts in…

In times of economic downturn, college enrollments often increase. Entering students may come from diverse educational backgrounds and bring variable skill sets. In this article, the authors describe a skills-focused course developed to ensure that transfer and nontraditional students returning to education are prepared to succeed in…

"Practical rhetoric" is a narrowing of classical rhetoric because it no longer shapes public opinion but is increasingly shaped by it, specifically by special interest groups formed around and geared to what a selected audience wants to hear. In the teaching of composition, this pluralism of rhetoric leads to fragmentation and specialization, and…

This article introduces a simple, flexible approach to engaging students within large classes, known as ARC (application, response, collaboration). ARC encourages each student's presence and engagement in class; creates a sense of excitement and anticipation; breaks down passivity and anonymity; effectively gains, maintains, and utilizes…

Despite the spread of reliable desktop audio and videoconferencing facilities, some CMC-based projects still rely on asynchronous written environments, if only because of the temporal constraints of synchronicity (Guichon, 2009; Develotte, Guichon & Vincent, 2010). Yet speaking is usually the skill students most need to improve when learning a…

Drawing from the experiences of the University of Minnesota Technical College, Waseca (UMW), this paper provides a rationale and suggestions for promoting and integrating the humanities in vocational education. After discussions of the problems of interesting occupational students in humanities courses and the value of humanities instruction in…

This descriptive study examines when and how students use Russian-English dictionaries while reading informational texts in Russian and what success they have with word lookup. The study uses introspective verbal protocols (i.e., think-alouds) to follow how readers construct meaning from two texts while reading them for a limited time first…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the major patterns in content-based instruction (CBI) lesson plans among practicum teachers at the final stage of an MA TESOL program. One hundred and seven lesson plans were coded according to a typology developed to evaluate clarity and identify areas of potential difficulty in the design of…

This paper develops the argument that new literacies constitute an indispensable foundation for developing school discourse among 1.5 and newcomer urban adolescents. A mother and literacy educator presents insights learned from indirectly participating in co-constructing Standard English discourse with her newcomer adolescent son through video…

Officials in charge of California's community colleges and universities worked with an advisory committee consisting of representatives of two- and four-year public and independent colleges to develop a plan to ensure an adequate nursing workforce for California. The group reviewed existing nursing education programs, trends in the health care…

Suggests steps for a teacher preparing to teach a technical writing course for the first time. Stresses materials with which the teacher should be familiar and the need for making contacts with local people in business and industry as well as with faculty members. (TJ)