Effective speakers often think about their audience as they organize and articulate ideas. This important link between speaker and listener should be supported in classrooms throughout the school year. Teachers can foster this development by motivating speakers to interact with others and by encouraging individuals to make inferences concerning…

There are several potential problems which the Speech Communication instructor may face in evaluating students' performance, including: (1) students may neglect to recognize the multi-cultural classroom context (including ethnic and religious differences); (2) different world-views can result in clashes of opinions; (3) morality can be perceived…

The "speech methods" course can be made more meaningful to its students, and more manageable for its faculty, by the development and use of a pre-methods sequence of teacher preparation which involves advising, focusing content and assignments, and providing occasional seminar sessions for the speech education students and their…

A study investigated the use of small groups for speech evaluation in the fundamental speaking course. The use of a small group is seen as a method of reducing student fear of public criticism. Subjects were 97 male and female undergraduate students enrolled in Introduction to Speech courses at one of four different colleges in the Southern…

This annotated bibliography lists 36 references on lecturing. Topics are in the areas of method, format, technique, student expectations, improvement, content, expressiveness, and anxiety. (MS)

This annotated bibliography includes sources of information that are primarily concerned with problem solving, decision making, and processes of social influence in small groups, and secondarily deal with other aspects of communication and interaction in groups, such as conflict management and negotiation. The 57 entries, all dating from 1980…

This annotated bibliography on leadership, compiled to help individuals determine where to begin in the massive amount of published material on the subject, contains 52 entries dated from 1980 forward. The selections have been made with a view towards the needs of both those interested in the practical aspects of leadership and those who may have…

Speech communication teachers can assist students in gaining more facility with language by helping them become active learners or problem solvers through: (1) experiencing an event; (2) reflecting on this experience which leads to (3) the formation of abstract concepts and generalizations about what has been learned; and finally (4) incorporating…

Noting that stagefright has been the subject of intensive analysis and subjected to almost every conceivable test or measurement without revealing either its "cause" or its "cure," this paper presents vocal exercises to help combat the performance malady. After listing four principles concerning the nature of stagefright (it is…

Twenty years ago the average number of individual events offered at an intercollegiate forensics tournament was two. That average has increased steadily over the years until today it is close to 10 events per individual events tournament. However, some of the so-called "new" or "experimental" events are duplicative, causing the…

The materials and resources offered in this performance guidebook are designed to develop the more formal acting skills of secondary school students, to provide extensive experience in script analysis and scene work, and to develop the student by modifying unfortunate inhibitions, encouraging creativity, and developing strong communication skills.…

This report presents the thoughts and impressions of an American student who participated in a series of eight debates on U.S.-Soviet relations held in the Soviet Union. The first section of the paper is devoted to the purpose of and preparations for the debates, which focused on the topics of war and peace in the two societies' systems of values,…

A study analyzed responses to indirect imperatives in a large doctor's office, looking specifically at superior-subordinate relationships in an organizational setting in order to see if there are different responses to indirect and direct imperatives, and what those differences involve. Twenty hours of interaction were audiotaped and observed…

The communication that occurs in a language classroom is real communication, because the interactions deal with ordinary, everyday matters. The substance of classroom management and the related exchanges between students and teacher, such as roll call and group exercises, provide many opportunities for language learning. Teachers can require…

The actual nature of topicality as it is presented in intercollegiate debate rounds has become so split that there are two different types of topicality. The first type (T1) is a "real" argument that is subjective, intentional, absolute, jurisdictional, pragmatic, and focuses on content and product. The second type (T2) is strategic,…