Traditionally, classroom drama is a safe literary activity that involves students in reading or writing scripts. The newer methods that have the students out of their seats improvising drama require training that few teachers have had. Current teacher training methods are described, and alternative methods are suggested. (MT)

The significance of drama as an expressive form of thinking and feeling lies in its concern with the process of personal engagement with the objective world. A Taxonomy of Personal Engagement is offered and strategies and techniques to engage students are suggested. (MT)

The Spolin Theater Games consist of more than 200 games and exercises to encourage spontaneity, creativity, and interpersonal communication in group settings. This article describes the use of Spolin games in four classes of six- to nine-year-old educationally handicapped children and looks at changes that occurred, particularly in the way…

This article focuses on the language foundation for education. A brief overview of various linguistic theories as they relate to education are offered. The contrast between the functional, natural, self-generated, and contextually relevant characteristics of talk and writing are explored. (DF)

Language skills play an important role in learning. Teachers must understand how meanings are formed, why they are often difficult to communicate, and the importance of language in the formation and sharing of meaning. Various communication practices that inhibit or enhance the students' understanding of meaning are explored. (DF)

Failure to comprehend spoken language usually results from lack of knowledge on the part of the listener or poor communication skills on the part of the speaker. When diagnosing possible causes of poor listening comprehension, the teacher must reflect on these factors and analyze the classroom situation. (DF)

The way adults talk with children is important because different styles of interaction lead to different learning opportunities. Differences between child-parent linguistic interaction and child-teacher interactions are explored. Suggestions to help teachers interact more effectively are discussed. (DF)

The nature of meaning as it is developed through interaction between individuals is explored in a discussion of how writers lead readers to understand a text. (DF)

The Second Language Learning in the Primary School Project was developed to explore ways of providing for the special language needs of children from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The project focused on language skills, first-hand experiences, extensive use of spoken language, and children working together. Examples of this…

The issue of teachers' interpretion of children's language and ideas is explored through observations of sharing time in a second-grade classroom. Problems associated with teacher evaluation of student competence in classrooms where children come from various ethnic and linguistic backgrounds are discussed. (DF)

Kindergarten children were observed in a classroom situation to discover communicative competence in the sociolinguistic area. These children demonstrated competency in awareness of regularities in use of language in the classroom, ability to publicize confusions, and variations in ways of speaking. (DF)

Developing a classroom environment where students share their ideas, feelings, and perceptions can be a challenge for the teacher. Language acquisition begins in the home and many teachers are finding ways to incorporate key aspects of the home environment into communication activities in school. Computer software that may expand the communicative…

Content or subject matter, interpersonal relationships, and symbolic means of representing meaning are interacting elements that affect language use. The elements have been described as the field, tenor, and mode of discourse. The influence of these concepts on what children write, why they write, and for whom they write are explored. (DF)

Elements of context, which include the individual perspectives and expectations of individuals, are discussed in this article. Transcribed discussions of young adults in professional training are used to illustrate various group discussion skills. Implications for language learning are stated. (DF)

Ten guidelines formulated to assist policy decision makers in developing system-wide approaches to creating strong and effective language programs are discussed in this article. (DF)