This study provides a rationale for the claim that communication instruction is critical to students' future personal and professional success. Thematic analysis of 93 journal and newspaper articles, reports, and surveys provide evidence of the centrality of communication in developing the whole person, improving the educational enterprise, being…

Designed to aid school districts, administrators, and teachers in meeting the Idaho Department of Education Speech Communication requirement, this pamphlet first defines the learning-teaching environment for the speech communication course, describes who should teach it, and justifies its inclusion in the school curriculum. The main part of the…

A survey was conducted to examine the role of peace education within existing speech communication programs and to describe that role both in terms of curricular and research priorities. Respondents, 113 department Chairs out of a total of 578 on the Speech Communication Association's list of institutions offering degrees in communication,…

Intended for teachers of speech and theater, the material in this annual journal is divided into three parts: original research, instructional practices and materials, and Illinois issues. Titles and authors are as follows: (1) "A Study of the Predictive Validity of the Relational Control Paradigm" by Emil Bohn and Douglas G. Bock, (2)…

This paper explores possibilities of using the feature film, "American History X," to illustrate and assist in teaching principles of self-concept in an introduction to interpersonal communication course. The paper: (1) summarizes the plot of the film; (2) outlines and defines principles of self-concept that can be discussed in…

A major decision confronting the basic communication course director involves the degree of instructional freedom to grant teaching assistants in regard to lecture/presentational materials, readings, written assignments, examinations, and grading procedures. In making these decisions, certain philosophical and pragmatic implications of possible…

The first stage of a three-stage speech placement test that can be used by individual campuses of the University of Wisconsin is discussed in this paper. The following applications of this speech theory test are described first: to exempt students from the basic communication course, to place students in an appropriate communication course, or to…

The authors present the case for improvement in the teaching of oral communication skills to business students. They describe a successful model laboratory approach to teaching these skills. (CH)

Empathic listening is a specific category of listening in which people actively engage in dialogue at the affective level, with the listener attempting to understand and acknowledge the present feelings being experienced by the speaker. Since empathic listening is central to human communication processes, any speech communication curriculum which…

A description of a college course entitled "The Loving Relationship," this report first explains course structure and requirements, textbooks used, and instructional goals. After offering assumptions underlying the course's development, including the ideas that loving is an act of will, that communication is essential to love, and that personal…

Twenty years of research in interpersonal communication have provided teachers with a basis for identifying the competencies that should be taught in introductory interpersonal communication courses, including empathy, social composure, and conflict management. However, other issues such as "performance vs. knowledge," the affective dimension, and…

The roots of the interpersonal communication program at the University of Kansas (Lawrence) lay in the human relations training program initiated there in the late 1940's. Probably the major contribution of human relations to interpersonal communication was in its focus on experiential learning through laboratory training. In the fall of 1967, an…

This paper explores some possible methodologies and approaches to the teaching of empathic listening, an essential component of human communication and listening competency. It defines empathic listening as "feeling with" another: a cognitive understanding of what the other is communicating plus a sensitivity to their state of emotion.…

Symbolic interactionism, or the interactional perspective, provides the broadest overview of the major theoretical divisions in the field of speech communication. It is neither too abstract nor overly concrete and is directly linked to communicative behavior, and thus does not impose an inappropriate mechanism on the discipline in order to create…

In order to improve instruction in basic speech courses, a program was developed adapting creative problem solving to speech preparation and to interactive speech communication. The program, called O-I-C--Orientation, Incubation, and Composition--and based on Howell's five levels of competence and their implications, begins with a thorough study…