In view of the necessity for an evaluation instrument with a degree of objectivity for rating the Master of Arts oral examinations, a rating scale is described that requires little additional time on the part of the professor. The scale covers factors of depth and breadth of subject coverage, research, organization, and presentation. The ratings…

This study analyzed the relationship between oral language facility and reading achievement of 140 selected first-grade children in the state of Virginia. Teacher selection, general intelligence tests, and language and verbal fluency tests were used to place the children in two groups, a Verbal Group and a Non-Verbal Group. Significant differences…

Thirteen papers given by language specialists are presented. These analyze special linguistic (semantic) problems that occur when interconnected strings of sentences constitute data base; they also analyze special psychological problems (of memory, inference, and motivation) that occur when human subjects are exposed to discourse materials in…

Henry James, the nineteenth-century American novelist, also served on occasion as a theatre critic. Between 1875 and 1890 he reviewed several productions in Boston, New York, London, and Paris for "Atlantic Monthly" and other periodicals. The reviews are of interest because of James' high standards regarding acting and his often…

Designed to help readers improve their interpersonal skills, this book encourages its readers to examine interaction from the receiving point of view in terms of how people are shaped and affected by what they listen to in their own speech and in the speech of others. Communicative experience is emphasized and suggested assignments are provided in…

An examination of language arts instruction for the elementary school child, this paper reviews the failures of traditional methods of teaching grammar to develop language competence. As an alternative, the author proposes the oral method, which focuses upon student-centered interaction situations. Such situations would provide the student with…

The study on which this final report is based focused on selected Micronesian students at the University of Guam who, after receiving their degrees, will return to their home islands to assume positions requiring them to function as intermediaries between the American and Micronesian approaches of life. Interviews with these students and with…

This study explores the relationship between children's metalinguistic awareness of aural word boundaries and their reading achievement and was designed to answer the following questions: (1) Does a child's knowledge of spoken word boundaries improve with age? (2) What is the relationship between children's conceptions of spoken words and their…

Discussions in this journal focus on the teaching of speech communication and drama in the secondary-level classroom. "Creative Drama in the Secondary Classroom" provides suggestions for incorporating beginning, lyric, and "human" drama into the secondary-level curriculum. "Student-Centered Teaching: A Desire for…

In order to establish whether voice pitch and evaluative meaning play any significant role in affecting message learning (as demonstrated by listeners' recall) at the morphemic level of communication, 48 freshman students in a basic speech program participated in this study. Through individual headsets, students listened to tapes containing an…

This paper deals with the counterexamples to the general principles that: (1) a sentence as utterance has only one illocutionary force, in the sense of J.L. Austin; and (2) performative verbs do not normally retain illocutionary force in embedded contexts. Various tests for illocutionary force are applied, such as substitution of another speech…

This test booklet is divided into four parts: (1) Oral Comprehension of Commands; (2) Visual Oral Comprehension; (3) Oral Comprehension of Common Verbs; and (4) Oral Questions. General instructions and teachers' instructions for grading are given in English and instructions for the student in Spanish. There are eight double pictures which are to…

This paper examines language variation in terms of overdetermination and underdetermination of structural information as related to grammatical rules and the structure of social behavior. (CLK)

Surveys the language problems encountered by teachers and students when the vehicle of instruction is not their native tongue and groups these according to five ad hoc headings. Outlines five parameters which offer a solution to the language problems. (GS)

Suggests that behavioral evidences of learning which are too narrowly defined may potentially impede the effective teaching of speech communication and advocates improved professional-public communication to establish a realistic accountability framework. (MH)