The Speech Perception in Noise Test was administered to nine native-Mexican Spanish-speaking adults who learned English either before age 6 or after age 14 and nine monolingual American-English adults. Levels of noise at which speech was intelligible were significantly higher and the benefit from context was significantly greater for monolinguals…

Discusses the attitudes of students concerning the benefit of Year 12 foreign language courses to the development of their oral and aural proficiency in the target language, i.e., French. While most students felt that their ability to speak and understand spoken French had improved as a result of the course, some expressed dissatisfaction with…

Ascertains the influence of the development of receptive phonetic skills on the level of listening comprehension of adults learning French as a second language in a formal setting. Test results indicate substantial gains in phonetics by the experimental group and a significant difference between the performance of experimental and control groups.…

Emphasizes that auditory lexical decision has wide applicability and that the paradigm is currently used to study basic processes in word recognition, the nature of the mental lexicon, effects of word frequency, neighbor effects and various other phenomena of isolated word perception. Article reviews the strengths and weaknesses of this task. (54…

Discusses how to implement student self-assessment and large-group assessment in the high school instrumental music classroom. Reports on the students' thoughts about these assessment types. Includes various forms to assist in assessment. (CMK)

Presents a lesson plan that can be utilized within an U.S. history survey course. Introduces students to oral history and unusual primary sources, specifically narratives of a senior citizen. Includes a description of the procedure, sample interview questions, and suggestions for conducting an oral history interview. (CMK)

Efficiency, precision, and concurrent validity of results from adaptive and fixed-item music listening tests were studied using: (1) 2,200 simulated examinees; (2) 204 live examinees; and (3) 172 live examinees. Results support the usefulness of adaptive tests for measuring skills that require aurally produced items. (SLD)

A study compared intelligibility and speech rate differences following speaker implementation of 3 strategies (topic, alphabet, and combined topic and alphabet supplementation) and a habitual speech control condition for 5 speakers with severe dysarthria. Combined cues and alphabet cues yielded significantly higher intelligibility scores and…

Combined multiple regression and classification and regression tree (CART) analyses to study the interrelationships of variables that affect the item difficulty of items on tests of second language reading and listening comprehension. Results for 214 computerized items completed by 87 nonnative English speakers show the value of synthesizing…

Explains the Tomatis Method, a program of auditory stimulation and counseling used to assist children, adolescents, and adults with learning and communication disorders. Presents a meta-analysis of data from five research studies evaluating the efficacy of this method in assisting children with such disorders. Suggests that effect sizes favoring…

Presents fundamental concepts of the Reggio Emilia philosophy of early childhood education, focusing on the importance of "research" as a learning strategy for constructing knowledge for both children and adults. Describes the pertinent image of the child, the school, learning, and knowledge. Details components of a pedagogy of…

This study of 8 language-disordered children, ages 5-8, found that subjects increased their nonverbal behavior as message conditions changed from unambiguous to ambiguous. Nonverbal indication was generally the only signal of ambiguity detection exhibited by subjects and language-matched peers, whereas age-matched peers consistently indicated…

The early stages of development of a prototype test of listening comprehension for English-as-a-Second-Language are described, including objective setting, hardware and software considerations for speech storage and generation, general structure, student attitudes in initial field testing, and needed additional research. Proper creation and use of…

Four language class activities are suggested, including an exercise designed to involve even the most recalcitrant students in oral communication, an artist's visit to the class to discuss his work, use of an authentic document to develop understanding of figurative language, and a reading comprehension and interpretation activity. (MSE)

Reports on a study that focused on the mental processes second-language learners use in listening comprehension, the strategies they use in different phases of comprehension, and the differences in strategy use between students designated by their teachers as effective and ineffective listeners. Findings are related to implications for…