This document consists of two closely related papers given at the same conference session: "Oral Proficiency for Managers: A Design for Portuguese" (Maria Antonia Cowles), and "Oral Proficiency for Managers: A Design for German" (Doris Kirchner). These papers discuss program design and strategies for developing oral foreign…

This 34-item annotated bibliography examines the literature concerning language experience in the following areas: (1) the rationale for incorporating language arts in the primary classroom; (2) whether using language experience aids the child in developing reading strategies; (3) the achievement scores of children using language experience; (4)…

A descriptive study examines the drawing, oral language, and composing behaviors of selected first grade limited English proficient (LEP) children following a natural language text reading experience. The units of analysis were LEP children's drawings, written texts in writing folders, oral language during a writing episode, and story retellings.…

This book is designed for use in preservice and inservice language arts methods courses and as a professional reference for the practicing teacher. The approach to teaching language arts advocated in the book is that of individualized, interactive, and integrated instruction. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "The Language Arts Teacher…

It is proposed that linguistic oral content, or metalinguistics, be included in the curriculum of primary school francophone children. This content is not included in the functionally oriented official curriculum. The linguistic content proposed consists of a number of formal variants corresponding to non-formal stylistic markers and respecting…

Input language may have an effect on child development that goes far beyond language development alone. Language is the medium by which children acquire at least a portion of their sex role and social class or group characteristics, world view, and emotional and psychological well-being. Existing theories of psychological development ignore…

A study investigated the teaching of oral communication skills in European modern language instruction. The study had three objectives. The first was to find out if students see foreign language learning as learning to speak a language, by surveying English, Dutch, French, and Austrian schoolchildren. Results suggest that most of the students wish…

Previous research on Spanish vocabulary for second language instruction has focused primarily on word frequency in a variety of print sources, and has the added disadvantages of being outdated and having too complex a format. A new, computer-based analysis of spoken Spanish from different dialect regions of the world was undertaken to provide more…

As communication/English curricula pass from a period of great diversity to one of greater centrality, educators need to find a more reasoned direction to guide curricular decision making. Many of the current reports on the state of education refer to the importance of oral communication skills, but such skills have not received their rightful…

A description of the use of flowcharts in teaching students of English as a second language (ESL) to "map" dialogue for conversation begins with a review of the literature concerning the flowchart form and content. Conversational form and logic and the discourse chart designed by Mohr and adapted for this study are discussed. The classroom…

The propositions and inferences in a narrative story can be classified into two sets: the structurally explicit are those concerned with the central theme or structure of the story, and the incidentally explicit deal with information peripheral to this theme. This study compared readers and listeners from grades three and five in their…

This research is part of a longitudinal study designed to compare measures of first-grade oral language with reading achievement at various grade levels. The original study constructed ten measures for oral language from interviews with 100 first graders and compared those measures to the reading achievement of the subjects at the end of first…

This study was designed to develop an instrument to measure comprehension of oral-language syntactic structures, to establish the validity and reliability of the instrument, and to determine the nature of the relationship between comprehension of syntactic structures in oral language and reading comprehension. The Comprehension of Selected Oral…

The acquisition of the copula and auxiliary "be" forms of "am,""is," and "are" was studied with 16 children. Spontaneous social speech samples were obtained from each child. One child's speech was sampled for approximately one hour per week from age 2;5 through 4;0, and for one-half hour per week from age 4;1 to 5;0. A second child's speech was…

The ontogenetic development of human vocal utterances and their role in early interaction processes were studied with a three-month-old baby. Recordings were made of infant vocalizations in the home and the sounds were classified. During a five-minute segment between the mother and infant, the infant produced 59 utterances, 93 percent of which had…