This paper discusses the results of a study comparing the language of preschool children from low-income homes to that of their parents as affected by the adult participation in training sessions planned to encourage language development. The study was conducted in three preschools in the Detroit metropolitan area. A total of 96 children from ages…

Spontaneous speech performance of ethnically diverse subjects was investigated by measuring within- and between-group lexical interface and by assessing direction of vocabulary overlap. Interview data were collected from 144 elementary school children, comprising equal white, chicano and black subsamples evenly divided among lower and upper…

More than 800 publications released from 1911 through 1975 dealing with the oral interpretation of literature are listed in this index. The publications are divided into four major groups: books, collected essays, articles, and theses and dissertations. Within each grouping, items are listed in chronological order according to publication date. A…

Besides lack of motivation and insufficient time allowed for foreign language study, one reason for the failure to develop communicative competence in second language students lies in the methodology. Until recently, most second language pedagogy has centered on linguistic competence, or knowledge of how to communicate in a language. Research in…

The basic outline for a 16 sentence structured essay is a pattern that helps remedial writing students to improve their writing skills and that can be applied in the basic speech course and the remedial reading program as well. This document presents introductory comments about grading procedures for student essays based on the model and a…

In a recent paper (1977) Levenston and Blum suggested that lexical simplification operates according to universal principles, and that these derive from the individual's semantic competence in his mother tongue. This paper examines the validity of this suggestion by means of a comparative study of lexical simplification in three different…

This journal is devoted to the art of teaching in the field of speech communication. Articles collected in this issue address topics in the development of speech communication courses at the higher-education level and include the following titles: "Classroom as Process: A Dramatistic Observational Model for Speech Communication Teachers,""Taking…

In an eleventh-grade unit, students studied and practiced the art of storytelling and then went into elementary classrooms to tell stories to first-grade and second-grade children. Students prepared for the storytelling sessions by reading books on storytelling techniques, inviting a local storyteller to class and then videotaping and studying her…

This packet is the third of five developed as a set of self-appraisal instruments with which teachers (and others) can systematically examine their instruction methods in communication skills. The packet contains forms for teachers, students, administrators, and parents addressing two levels of specificity: responses to the overall communication…

A concurrent validation analysis was conducted for the recently developed Test of Spoken English (TSE), using as an external criterion the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) direct proficiency interviewing procedure. Use-related validation data for the TSE were obtained as a predictor of the communicative effectiveness in English of non-native…

Three sets of goals useful for assessing student competencies in speaking and listening are reviewed in this paper. The first instrument examined, derived from a report of that Speech Communication Association's National Project on Speech Communication Competencies for all grades, lists (1) five assumptions concerning the nature of communication…

A study was conducted to determine whether graduate teaching assistants in speech communication were aware of the affective components of their classroom behavior and of the student responses to them, and whether the instructors' awareness of the affective dimensions of instruction related to the student evaluative responses. Subjects were 640…

This is one of three volumes of instructional games devised to further the development of childrens' listening, logical thinking, problem solving, and effective oral communication skills. The games are designed to create a relaxed, informal setting in which teachers can encourage and support children's natural speech and provide language…

The 13 chapters in this volume explore what is known and what still needs to be learned about the complex relationships between speaking and writing. The first chapter in the book provides a detailed overview of linguistic studies of oral and written language relationships. The next three chapters focus on the relationships between children's oral…

Communication training for people experiencing life changes is examined in this paper. Among the topics considered are: recent social changes that have led to the occurrence of an increasing number of personal and professional changes during people's lives; the increased attention given recently to the process of communication within…