The present Topic Classification System (TCS) developed out of a 7-year period of research and supplements an earlier system (Aschner, Gallagher, 1965). The purpose of the system is to indicate 1) level of conceptualization (data, concept, or generalization); 2) the style of thinking (activity, description, explanation, evaluation-justification,…

The research reported is part of an investigation into the acquisition of grammar, using nonlinguistic information from situational and behavioral context to analyze the development of linguistic expression. Three children were seen for approximately 8 hours, every 6 weeks, in their homes, from the age of 19 months--soon after the earliest…

In teaching students to write for an audience, teachers should stress the meaning and purpose of the composition over rhetorical correctness and should emphasize style as well as content. Four teaching approaches through which students may establish and communicate their purposes are (1) "immediate feedback," in which teachers motivate pupils…

Nine transcripts of recorded conversation of German children ranging from 10 through 19 years of age are of special interest to linguists working on child language. The recordings, made in Heidelberg, Berlin, Hanover, and Urach/Wurttemberg, include elicited behaviors called "linguistic activities". The interviewers attempt to elicit: (1)…

Instead of emphasizing forms and types, teachers of communication should emphasize the kinds of actions that verbal communications are--both for those who make them and for those who receive them. Because, in verbal communication, language becomes a vehicle by which we exert "force" on another, language arts studies ought to begin with the study…

The oral and written language of 10 students expressing themselves on the same subject was observed to determine (1) whether an "oral style" could be identified and (2) what relationship existed between cognitive processes and methods of expression. Six girls and four boys were placed in two situations: an "oral" situation in…

This document reports the second year of Project IMPACT (Innovation and Motivation in Polk County for the Advancement of Creative Teaching), an ESEA Title III inservice program concerned with the need to "humanize" the process of education and the need to develop innovative teaching methods which will aid productive thinking and minimize…

Relatively little research has been done on the quantitative characteristics of children's word usage. This spoken count was undertaken to investigate those aspects of word usage and frequency which could cast light on lexical processes in grammar and verbal development in children. Three groups of 30 children each (boys and girls) from…

An analysis of the development of communication media can yield insight into the evolution of literary criticism. M. H. Abrams' division of the history of literary criticism into the imitative, the pragmatic, the expressive, and the objective provides a guideline in analyzing corresponding developments in communication media. The evolution of…

Training in communication skills is necessary at all educational levels, and more widespread implementation of such preparation is especially needed within vocational training curricula. Community college programs are particularly strengthened by greater stress on all types of communication skills--writing, public speaking, reading, listening, and…

The purpose of this study was to design a performance-based module to instruct student teachers in aspects of critical thinking and the teacher behaviors which promote critical thinking in pupils and to conduct a field test of that module. The two hypotheses tested were: student teachers who have experienced a training module which is designed to…

Classroom proxemics, particularly seating arrangements, are intuitively thought to affect the performance, attitudes, and behavior patterns of students. A study of 84 sixth-grade students, based on different classroom seating arrangements for a six-week period, tested this hypothesis. Both students and teachers submitted evaluation forms each week…

Developed as a high school quinmester unit on persuasive speaking, this guide provides the teacher with teaching strategies for a course which analyzes speeches from "Vital Speeches of the Day," political speeches, TV commercials, and other types of speeches. Practical use of persuasive methods for school, community, county, state, and…

Although written and oral criticism of a speech may help a student become aware of his mistakes and a tape recording may let him hear them, both techniques deal with past experiences. They make the student aware of what he did say, but not of what he is saying at the moment. Interjecting comments and criticisms while a student is speaking assists…

Research was conducted to determine: (1) the effects of a perceptual versus a symbolic modeling concept of a question categorizing system on the verbal behavior of student teachers; and (2) the effects subjects of this study have upon the question writing practices of students they instruct. Instruction regarding a modified Gallagher and Aschner…