Focusing on a model "game language," outlines an approach to speech instruction aimed at improving students' speaking skills and their understanding of variable speech habits. Discusses (1) speech instruction as part of the English curriculum, (2) a primary lesson "talking about talk," (3) the speech game--restricted sustained monologue, and (4)…

Argues that since students often articulate their meaning in speaking better than they can in writing, teachers should improve their awareness of speech and writing connections. Describes such relationships and suggests teaching strategies using speech to improve writing. Covers group composition, reading aloud, transcribing prewriting…

Allan Glatthorn, author of "Curriculum Renewal," makes specific recommendations for the content of the English "mastery curriculum," grades 5 to 12. These include guidelines for the six strands of the English curriculum: literature, language, composition, speaking and listening, critical thinking, and vocabulary development.…

A longitudinal study of the effect of mothers' communication modes on the language development of children (N=149) with severe or profound hearing loss indicated that children whose mothers used oral communication had higher scores on measures of spoken language, whereas children whose mothers used manual communication had higher scores on…

Attempts to distinguish the role of the structure of a message in determining the different modalities of decodification and memorization in oral discourse based on the theories and experiments of Ragnar Rommetveit of the Oslo School. (CFM)

Ten head-injured adults were compared to normal adults on a narrative picture description task. Subjects were similar in amount of pertinent content expressed, narrative length, and rate of speech, but were significantly slower in rate of information imparted as they required lengthier and slower verbal outputs to convey essential information.…

Two experiments employed story telling to investigate whether production is adapted to comprehension. Subjects were more likely to specify instruments from stories if the instruments were atypical or important to the story. A mathematical model proposed that instrument concepts may be selected at three stages in the production process. (Author/LMO)

A survey of educators (N=321) of the hearing impaired indicated that educational setting and communication mode employed most strongly affected their opinions on competencies relevant to instructional effectiveness. Those using oral/aural approaches thought a greater range of competencies necessary than those teaching in large special schools…

Reviews previous research and presents and analyzes data regarding some possible connections between small group oral interaction and language learning. Data show that communicative interaction is far more sensitive and significant to learners' needs and abilities than are other forms of language work. (CB)

Provides normative data regarding the use of certain verbal behaviors manifested by college teachers. Indicates that usage of humor, self-disclosure, and narratives by college teachers was frequently relevant to course content and used to clarify course material. Suggests that award winning teachers used these same behaviors in relation to course…

Identifies intercultural conversational competencies for Mexican Americans, Black Americans, and White Americans, which were compared and contrasted with previously identified intracultural competencies. Indicates that rules for conversing with members of one's own group are different from rules for intercultural conversations--with the general…

Four severely/profoundly hearing-impaired preschool children (ages 4-5) were given six vocabulary tasks (receptive, associative, and expressive) involving auditory and visual sensory modalities. Data confirmed that lipreading (visual modality) could be substituted for speech. However, for novice lipreaders, words with auditory-visual confusions…

The article describes and illustrates data collection methods useful in establishing social interaction objectives for improving the quantity and quality of parent social interactions with their handicapped infants. Among these are visual analysis of relationship patterns across intervention sessions, and the use of percentage for describing…

Describes four experiments on the speech segmentation procedures of English listeners listening to English words and compares them to earlier work based on French speakers listening to French words. The results indicate that the segmentation process characteristically employed by French speakers and English speakers differs. (SED)

Discusses future changes in society and the importance of an education that teaches problem solving. (PD)