To determine if an interviewer's orientation toward satisfaction and commitment actually produced different interviewee reactions in these two areas, 20 interviewers conducted an informative and persuasive interview with two different sets of five interviewees (physical education majors). The Conversation Self-Report Inventory (CSRI) was used to…

A 40-item questionnaire was used to collect data in a study that (1) profiled speech communication education graduates of Arkansas colleges and universities from 1975 through 1980, (2) characterized their teaching positions during this time, and (3) determined the nature, effectiveness, and value of the speech communication methods course they…

As the fourth in a series of investigations of teacher power in the classroom, a study focused primarily on extending and refining the classification of behavior alteration techniques (BATs) and behavior alteration messages (BAMs) that teachers report as representative of the classroom environment. The study took place in three phases. First,…

Children will meet one less obstacle to making the transition from spoken to written fluency in language if, during the transition period, they experience written language that corresponds structurally to their spoken language patterns. Familiar children's folksongs, because they contain some of the structure of children's oral language, provide…

The speech classes in leadership training described in this paper consist of laboratory groups that give experiential training in interpersonal communication skills. These groups, comprised of students, faculty, administrators, and staff and community members, function under the direction of student facilitators who are intensively trained in the…

Each of the three sections of this book highlights a basic concept in communication research that needs more attention, and includes individual articles that review or apply new methods for the study of social communication. The first part deals with organizational analysis and field studies, and reminds its readers that mass communication is not…

This position paper presents the beliefs of the California Association of Teachers of English about priorities and goals in the teaching of the English language arts. The first section of the paper describes desirable objectives and practices in teaching many aspects of language study, oral and written composing, and reading; it then examines…

This paper describes a field study of the "Personalized System of Instruction" (PSI) as it was used in an undergraduate communications research course. On the basis of statistics from two years of the program's implementation and from student responses after completing the course, the study draws five conclusions. (1) Most students did…

The four articles in this publication address the following topics: opportunities for developing a graduate program in international and intercultural communication in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; the nature of bilingualism and biculturalism in an urban context and their implications for intercultural communication; a typology of…

The effect of ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching techniques on student learning was investigated. A group of 18 ESL teachers and their classes were observed across four lessons having a similar content. Students were pre- and post-tested over a six-month period in two measures of language performance: oral comprehension and production.…

This model for a school community resource directory contains the following: (1) an overview of the problems involved in the compiling of resource people to serve as career speakers and trip hosts with a possible solution in the form of a file card format; (2) a description of the promotion of the new format; (3) an explanation of the development…

Based on the results of a research project and on the conviction that functional speech communication behaviors must be developed in children, this paper proposes several directions for the effective development of speech communication instruction in schools. The research project consisted of three phases: input, synthesis, and implementation. The…

Forty subjects who had previously been identified for internal/external locus of control characteristics read a case history that was manipulated to reflect either persuasive or coercive influence strategies. The subjects then completed five seven-point scales that measured the extent to which they approved or disapproved of the means of influence…

This journal is devoted to the art of teaching in the field of speech communication. Articles collected in this issue address topics on the development of basic speech communication courses and include the following titles: "Onward . . . A Tradition Continues"; "Performance Courses: No Way to Run a Railroad" and "Not Revolution but Revision,"…

A study was carried out to ascertain whether language instructors or naive judges were more reliable in judging oral proficiency. Fifteen students were chosen from the ESL (English as a second language) center at Southern Illinois University to record a tape while reading passages in English. The tape and a questionnaire were administered to 70…