Two observations point to the need for improvement of teacher internship programs in speech communication: (1) the supply of education graduates is far greater than the demand, and (2) in many universities and colleges, communication departments are struggling for survival. Scholars of communication must provide the most competent leadership…

A useful or adaptable strategy for coping with the limitations of a small college speech department is the process of developing a symbiotic relationship among grants, publications, and teaching. While using their training, special interests, and institutional setting, educators can (1) draw on the course materials and teaching experiences from…

Environmental differences for speech departments at large and small colleges are not simply of scale; there are qualitative as well as quantitative differences. At small colleges, faculty are hired as teachers, rather than as researchers. Because speech teachers at small colleges must be generalists, and because it is often difficult to replace…

Since very little investigation has been made of stories told in organizations, a pilot study was designed to examine story types, values, and recurring themes in stories of a regional planning agency employing 21 staff members. In order to collect stories, tape recorded interviews were conducted with each staff member. Open-ended questions…

When an individual enters a foreign cultural environment, the familiar signs and symbols that allow normal functioning and social interaction are gone. In order to adjust successfully one must understand the socially created system of hierarchically structured contextual units within which individual units of action are interpreted. These can be…

Examined are aspects of speech training that are crucial to attainment of understandable speech by the congenitally deaf, and the optimum time for auditory training. (Author/MC)

The 18 essays in this journal issue provide insight into the theory, issues and practice of forensics. They consider the following topics: an agenda for forensics education; problems of forensics in the United States today; improvement of debate practice and teaching; rhetorical dimensions of argumentation; use of speeches as an instructional…

This paper discusses the effects of reestablished or redefined core curriculum requirements on college speech communication programs, based on the survey responses of speech communication faculty members at 104 four-year schools. The following conclusions and recommendations are presented as a result of the survey: Although many employers consider…

In "creative listening" sessions, participants alternately present their ideas (for fixed periods of time) and listen silently to the other participants. This paper examines the value of this method as an aid to problem solving and offers suggestions for teachers serving as mediators and participants in creative listening sessions. It describes…

This paper discusses reasons for combining the composition and speech courses required of college freshmen. Observations about the traditional division of speech and composition instruction indicate that teachers with less experience are merely giving students "busy work" to exercise skills those students should have prior to college enrollment,…

This paper discusses both the persistent and changing features of rhetorical criticism during the past 60 years. From a review of 75 critical studies that were published from 1915 to 1925, from 1965 to 1968, in 1973, and from 1975 to 1977, three observations are made: First, most studies of rhetorical criticism have been, and continue to be, case…

Mastery learning is a systematic approach to instruction in which students are required to attain specified levels of competence. This paper provides a rationale for using mastery learning in the introductory public speaking course and clarifies the differences between traditional and mastery learning approaches by contrasting their assumptions…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a sample of community college students revealed different amounts of communication apprehension (reticence or anxiety experienced during spoken communication) than four-year college students and university students. Seventy John Wood Community College students, selected at random from…

The three papers in this symposium explore various aspects of communication apprehension. The first paper develops a theoretical model which attempts to explain the causes of oral communication apprehension, in terms of family structure and levels of communication skill development. A study of high school students indicates that children from…

Oral responses of 180 male and female undergraduates to scenarios containing positive-loving, neutral-informational, and/or negative-rejecting (male) child communications were obtained and scored along 25 specific categories, as well as a global rating of acceptance/rejection of child. A factor analysis generated six factors, which, along with the…