English academic presentation (EAP) is an indispensable skill set of academic communication for university students. With the rapid development of desktop virtual reality (DVR), its application in language learning is worth exploring. The present study aimed to examine whether there is an improvement and difference in students' EAP by learning…

This study aimed to evaluate whether or not students engage in self-help behavior when they encounter difficulties during their presentations. The participants were second year EFL college trainees; the data were obtained from their classroom presentations. The audio recorded data has been transcribed, coded, and categorized into quantitative and…

Speaking in public involves three parts: an act, a process, and art; however, stage fright is a common dilemma for students across all proficiency levels and cultural orientations. In this paper, some critical factors of successful public speaking affecting both students' self-scoring and the professor's grading of in-class presentations were…

This paper discusses a systematic four-step program for eliminating ineffective communication habits and replacing them with more effective new communication behaviors. This program has been used successfully to teach a variety of different communication skills including public speaking skills, small group interaction skills, and interpersonal…

Examines the impact of communication apprehension on avoidance, withdrawal, and anxiety in communication contexts in two separate studies. Concludes that those who are communication apprehensive avoid public speaking and that apprehensive responses to public speaking can be predicted from participant's communication apprehension level. (SRT)

Presents evidence of a positive relationship between self-perceived anxiety and hand-arm tremor for both male and female subjects. Results indicate that trembling may be a useful variable for inclusion in multimethod approaches to studying speech anxiety. (JMF)

Concludes that expectancy-violation (when audience does not expect the position a communicator advocates) enhances persuasive effectiveness more than similarity or unexpected similarity. (RL)

A study of doctrinaire rhetoric and extremism which notes consistent patterns of thought and of audience-speaker interaction amoung diverse doctrinaire groups. Concludes that doctrine shapes rhetorical styles as well as content and suggests the possibility of interpreting and evaluating social phenomena through the analysis of rehetoric. (JB)

Recent studies on the anxiety patterns of public speakers have generally supported perspectives on emotion from the field of neurobiology. Without relying on highly invasive or cumbersome technology, much of the biology of speech anxiety has been derived from heart rate studies of physiological arousal rather than examining more direct evidence…

THE STUDY ATTEMPTED TO RELATE THE DEGREE OF SPEECH FLUENCY TO SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS OF THE SPEAKER. THE FORM OF THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP ACTED SELECTIVELY ON THE SPEECH POSSIBILITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND AGAIN IN SOME WAY THESE POSSIBILITIES CONSTRAINED BEHAVIOR. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE TRANSFORMED LANGUAGE POSSIBILITIES INTO A…

Deals with the nature of communication apprehension and self-report instruments designed to measure it. (MH)

Using a computerized content analysis, the authors demonstrate changes in speech behaviors of prison inmates. They conclude that two to four hours of public speaking training can have only limited effect on students who live in a culture in which "prison speech" is the expected and rewarded form of behavior. (PD)

Presents two studies that replicated and extended J. K. Burgoon and R. C. Koper's research by examining nonverbal behavior patterns, relational message interpretations, and credibility evaluations associated with communication reticence. Challenges the traditional view that reticence produces pronounced performance decrements and discusses…

Defines reticence," suggests methods for identifying it, and offers oral interpretation as one solution to this problem. (SW)

In this article, the author examines the added value of strengths-based interventions in response to her college president's challenge that an educator should not be simply out for a talk in teaching. She redesigned her dissertation experiment to measure the impact of strengths-based teaching in two classrooms of Introduction to Public Speaking…