The author describes the teaching of English in the primary schools in Great Britain. He argues that the conscious development of spoken English may contribute to the improvement of written English. He also states that oral language cannot be separated from written language and that written English can develop only out of its oral form.…

Over a 10-year period, the oral language development of 338 pupils was studied from kindergarten through grade 9 to establish the most crucial and frequent oral language difficulties. Recorded samples of oral English from each subject were segmented by oral intonation patterns and syntactic units, and were analyzed yearly in terms of 21 oral…

Comparative research indicates that almost without exception, late eighteenth century non-standard English pronunciation was very close to what is called Broad Australian. Present Australian English is closely akin to the blended, popular colloquial London English, spoken by the largest group of Australia's first settlers. This pronunciation…

This is a study of how children in a small community called Rosepoint, in the vicinity of New Orleans, acquire speech. The author provides essential contextualization for her problem, dealing with family composition, life space, means used to control children, and interaction between members of the household. The author made intensive observations…

A comparison of two projects involving CAI was made and the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches employed at each installation during their developmental and operational phase was made. The two projects are in Kansas City, Missouri, and Wakulla County, Florida. Both installations are located in public schools and were originally funded…

Updated through the help of teachers, librarians, and other specialists, the book aims at advancing the cause of better human relations through literature, especially drama and fiction. The reading ladders include: 1) Creating a Positive Self-Image, recognizing one's strengths and weaknesses, growing into maturity and accepting oneself,…

Five studies investigated the interaction between language acquisition abilities and environmental factors. Subjects aged 5 to 20 imitated synthetic speech stimuli representing English and novel categories. All except the 5-year olds imitated better than was predicted from studies of categorical perception. The 12-year olds performed optimally.…

Discussion of techniques for teaching vocabulary in language programs centers on five major areas: (1) "knowing" the word, (2) selection of vocabulary, (3) grading vocabulary for presentation, (4) teaching methods, and (5) vocabulary expansion in advanced levels. Theory of vocabulary instruction is largely supported by writings of Nelson Brooks,…

This paper considers the processes involved as children and adults learn a new language. For the child this can mean learning his native language. One difference between learning a language in a classroom and in a "live" situation is motivation toward communication. The child learning his mother tongue is highly motivated to communicate, as are…

Thirteen papers from the 1971 Auburn University Reading Conference reported on various aspects of individualized reading, including informal diagnosis of reading skills, the role of oral and silent reading, classroom organization, media and materials for teaching reading, affective behavior related to reading, simulation games and their uses in…

The purpose of this study is to test the commonly held assumption that younger children are superior to those who are older in learning to speak a second language with a good accent. Students from the elementary, junior high, and college levels are tested after receiving identical instruction in German phonemes. Post-test results indicate that…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of CEMREL's Language and Thinking: New Directions Program, a broadly based early learning program in the teaching of basic language and reasoning skills. The program is a hierarchical skills oriented approach which provides a broadly based set of guidelines for teachers; a wide array…

An attempt to answer questions surrounding the teaching of oral communication to children is presented. In each section, a pattern is followed. First comes the presentation of an example. Second, there is an explanation of the teaching efforts which led up to this oral product. Third, the author adds comments and raises questions to help the…

This handbook describes the origins and activities of a community parent education committee which was formed to encourage the nationwide dissemination of information and services to help parents give their children the experiences necessary for reading readiness. Activities designed to promote positive self-concepts, psychomotor skills, sensory…

In order to compare methods of instructing Spanish-speaking children in oral English, 11 children were randomly assigned to the control group--instruction conducted in English using the Peabody Development Kit (PDK)--while 12 children were assigned to the experimental group--bilingual instruction using the PDK. At the outset, all children were…