One hundred sixty college students were randomly assigned to eight groups defined by the possible combinations of teacher vagueness in instruction (vagueness v. no vagueness), teacher mazes conditions (mazes are defined as false starts or halts in speech, redundancy, and semantically nonsensical word combinations), and additional unexplained…

The resource guide provides migrant educators with activities to implement the National Migrant Education Oral Language Skills List, serving as both a starting point for developing oral language and as a model for the kinds of activities compatible with the stated purpose and rationale used to develop the Skills List. All listening and speaking…

The hypothesis that abused children develop a life style of overt expression of aggression and depression was examined in a study of 56 physically abused first grade children who were placed in foster care due to parental physical abuse. As no test instrument existed, the Childhood Social Functioning Inventory was developed, pretested, and used to…

For the use of team leaders responsible for guiding teacher interns through a two-year, on-the-job training program, this document provides a framework of essential competencies and teaching skills to be achieved before beginning teaching. Five generic teaching skills are identified: diagnosis, prescription, classroom management, instruction…

Sixteen lesson plans on communications are presented in this performance-based curriculum unit for distributive education. This unit is self-contained and consists of the following components: introduction (provides overview of unit content and describes why mastery of the objectives is important); performance objectives; pre-assessment instrument…

This study is an examination of the interactional language of a teacher from United States mainstream culture and three male students, one each from Appalachian culture, black inner-city culture, and mainstream culture, during first grade literacy instruction. In this cultures-in-contact situation provided in an urban school in the northeastern…

A sociolinguistic investigation of pupil interpretations of the functions of questions and responses was applied to 165 pupils in a multiethnic, lower socioeconomic status elementary school. Procedures involved videotaping of language arts lessons and family conversations. Videotapes were played back to pupils, who were then asked to explain "What…

A descriptive, developmental study of children's imitation of interrogative sentences was conducted among 16 preschool and 15 kindergarten children acquiring English as either a native or a second language. A program of language activities based on four American folk rhymes (three in the form of a rhythmic dialogue and the fourth an antiphonal…

The following essays on communication are presented: communication as a condition of survival, communication for special purposes, the means of transmission of communication, communication within social and economic structures, the teaching of communication through the press, the teaching of modern languages, communication as a point of departure,…

This manual provides leader guides for six workshop sessions for parents who wish to improve their communication and problem solving skills. Session I emphasizes that behavior is a sign of an underlying feeling and that parents should look for signs of feelings in the actions of their children. Session II stresses the importance of sensitive…

The purpose of this study was to see if a social learning method for training verbal social skills might influence the social effectiveness of third grade children with low peer acceptance. Children were trained in three verbal skills: asking questions of peers; leading peers (e.g., offering useful suggestions or directions); and, offering…

This report presents information on the experiences of three different Asian-American groups (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) in the United States. Historical and geographic overviews of each group's country and a brief chronological history of each group's immigration and subsequent role in and influence on U.S. history are provided. Product and…

The major purpose of this seventh-grade teaching unit on language is to expand the students' understanding of language as central to human activity. The purposes, methods, and commonalities of such disciplines as anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and rhetoric are defined within the framework of language study to suggest the scope of…

This study investigated communication patterns of retired faculty of Missouri colleges and universities. Questionnaires were completed by 75 persons (50 men and 25 women), of whom 50 (33 men and 17 women) were interviewed. Findings included the following: face to face communication was the favorite mode of communication, followed by telephone,…

An exploratory study investigated the effects of two organizational patterns of microsimulation experiences (concurrently with or sequentially to student teaching) on the verbal teaching behavior of student teachers trained in the Reciprocal Category System of Interaction Analysis (RCS) as compared to their counterparts who received no RCS…