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Possessing strong communication skills is essential in contributing to effective teaching. This paper investigates graduating student teachers' English language proficiency, as measured by IELTS tests scores, of graduating EL student teachers. The paper considers what teachers need to know about the English language given that English has been the medium of instruction (MoI) for Singapore schools since 1987. Given such a context, English language proficiency is an important consideration in the preparation of pre-service teachers in Singapore. Implications for additional training and preparation in language skills are also proposed.

Despite there being significantly more autistic adults than autistic children, few online consumer health information resources address their information needs. Additionally, many resources that do exist focus on treatments for autism, rather than for health issues that disproportionately affect autistic people. Part of this problem stems from a lack of understanding of autism and autistic people. However, several Autistic self-advocacy organizations and universities have created resources based on the health information needs of autistic adults. This paper introduces several of these resources, which may not be familiar to librarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the current state of academic research within the discipline of archive administration in the UK. It identifies and examines a number of reasons why research output from the UK is so low when compared with activity on an international basis. These reasons include the historic nature of archival education in the UK, the expectations of training on the part of practitioners, perceptions of the value of research and archival theory within the UK profession, and the size and capacity of the archival academic community. This is contrasted with much greater activity and debate around the issue of research in Canada, the USA and Australia. The article makes a number of suggestions for fostering greater research activity in the UK such as a mapping of the research landscape to identify need, the development of a research agenda, and the introduction of modules in research training into postgraduate courses. The profile of current research activity could be raised by, for example, the publication of abstracts of masters' dissertations. Work carried out by organisations like the National Archives into areas such as digital preservation could also be recognised as research. (Contains 1 note.)

School- and university-based writing tasks make demands on cognitive processing and socio-cultural knowledge that vary with the discipline in which the writing is situated. The variation in socio-cognitive demands makes the use of self-accessed, computer-mediated writing instruction more promising than conventional, teacher-fronted instruction. To be effective, self-accessed writing instruction should be constructed in partnership with student writers whose composing problems would form the basis of the content and organization of the instructional package. This paper demonstrates how a socio-cognitive model of writing informs the development of "Essay Assist", a computer programme for guiding students towards appropriate decisions in the essay writing process. Results of a preliminary trial are reported and their implications discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)