Elementary language arts programs demand a balanced use of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (JH)

The General Motors Institute (GMI), a wholly owned subsidiary of the General Motors Corporation, was created to provide leaders for its parent organization. GMI is a fully accredited undergraduate college that offers degrees in industrial, electrical, and mechanical engineering and in industrial administration. Since people in business and…

This paper describes the development and design of English 118 at Drake University. The course, geared primarily for college juniors and seniors, devotes proportionate shares of time to the theory, practice, and analysis of written expression, oral interpretation, and nonverbal communication. Six course options enable a wide variety of students to…

Nonverbal communication is an important and little-understood aspect of human communication. This book deals primarily with two aspects of nonverbal communication: paralanguage and kinesics. "Paralanguage" includes vocalizations such as hissing, shushing, and whistling, as well as speech modifications such as quality of voice (sepulchral, whiny,…

In view of the importance of selectivity to the understanding of the interpersonal, small group, and public communication processes, this concept must be introduced into the communication classroom. This paper introduces an instructional model that simplifies the student's understanding of the four major steps involved in the selectivity process:…

This study examined the relationship between the oral language fluency of different socioeconomic status (SES) children entering first grade and their success in learning to read, as measured at the end of the school year. Complete data were obtained from 27 upper, 24 middle, and 23 lower SES level students. Oral language samples were recorded in…

The four articles in this journal explore various aspects of empathy and its application to oral interpretation of literature. The first article examines the concept of empathy, discusses measures of it, and includes an "accurate empathy exercise" and an empathy scale. The second article discusses the way in which the writings of Dylan…

Pantomime can be used in language arts classes as a learning activity in which students observe and organize movements in a logical sequence, transforming abstract concepts into vivid images. This paper suggests three ways that teachers can use pantomime in the classroom: portraying character types, such as golfer, archer, or juggler; becoming…

Fifth graders (18 boys, 15 girls) listened to tape recordings of adult male-female speaker pairs reading an identical passage and selected for each pair the speaker they would prefer to have as their own teacher. Girls selected female significantly more often than male speakers, and boys selected male more often than female speakers, but not…

Research has shown that nonverbal variables have a strong influence on classroom communication. This paper examines the way in which communication in the classroom is affected by the variables of distance, physical environment, facial expression, vocal cues, posture and gestures, touch, use of time, physical attractiveness, and dress. Each…

This is an examination of beginning teachers' acquisition of the structures of classroom discourse. Teachers were compared at the beginning and at the end of their first teaching year using a discourse analysis system. Thirty-three hours of audiotapes from 11 teachers were transcribed an coded. Teacher initiations during informing, eliciting, and…

A personalized learning strategy (PLS) was successfully employed in the small group discussion unit of a basic speech communication course. This document describes the rationale behind PLS and discusses ways to implement it. An outline of the small group discussion unit in which PLS was used matches the necessary learning experiences to the…