The narrative performances of Navajo children were examined to determine the ways in which the skills of competently structuring a narrative are informally learned within the peer group. Ten- and eleven-year-old Navajo children, living near Window Rock, Arizona, were evaluated in telling stories about the most traditional figures of Navajo belief,…

Investigators agree that mothers employ a variety of request forms and that children seem to be able to respond to these forms with a remarkable degree of accuracy. It is suggested that the speech of mothers to their children is filled with requests which are really not requests at all. It is shown that many of what appear to be adult requests to…

A pragmatic approach may be used in teaching undergraduate courses in political communication. The design of such a course takes account of departmental, university, and community contexts, and focuses on the following six approaches: single figure or single issue; genre; media exploitation; print media; electronic media; and candidate image. The…

A manual for use in training French and Spanish language examiners at the Foreign Service Institute is presented here. After a discussion of the history of the language proficiency test and of the testing procedure and evaluation techniques, the following topics are covered: (1) language proficiency ratings based on the absolute criterion of the…

The primary objective of foreign language learning, social communication, requires that experiences be simulated in the classroom. Before such simulations can be constructed, the teacher has to know what is involved when people communicate, in other words, the nature of the language act. This paper analyzes the situational, syntactical, and…

The rationale for delayed oral practice in language teaching is that the same rules underlie both speaking and listening and that the student has to understand how a language works before being capable of creating a sentence in the language. Having to focus on speaking performance as well as on listening comprehension distracts the learner from…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 34 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) marital communication; (2) aspects of dyadic communication, including self-disclosure, trust, dominance versus recessiveness, and influence of sex role…

This study considers the interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors (social and cognitive) in children's production of coordinate structures involving conjunction reduction. Two aspects of pragmatic context were considered: (1) the pattern of uncertainty or redundancy in a complex action sequence, and (2) the perceptual grouping of objects…

THIS COLLECTION OF RESEARCH REVIEWS SUMMARIZES A TOTAL OF 151 INVESTIGATIONS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS ON THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY LEVELS. THE ELEMENTARY EDUCATION SECTION REVIEWS ALL RESEARCH REPORTED IN JOURNALS BETWEEN JANUARY AND DECEMBER OF 1966 IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS--(1) RESEARCH SUMMARIES AND LISTINGS, (2) LANGUAGE, (3) ORAL…

THE INCREASED EMPHASIS ON THE AUDIOLINGUAL SKILLS REQUIRES NEW APPROACHES IN TESTING. THESE SKILLS CAN BE SEPARATED INTO SEVERAL AREAS FOR WHICH GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL OBJECTIVE TESTS CAN BE CONSTRUCTED. EXAMPLES OF GROUP TESTS ARE AURAL WORD-RECOGNITION TESTS AND TESTS OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION. TESTS WHICH MUST BE ADMINISTERED INDIVIDUALLY ARE…

Communication as a language-learning goal is legitimate, but it is claimed that some of the situational and functional techniques in pursuit of that goal are not. The value of most of the practice techniques generally used in second language classes is also questioned. In their place, a process of learner-centered analyses and communication…

This first volume of the DLI Basic Course in French contains 15 lessons, one for each day of the first three weeks and initial phase of the course. Every fifth lesson is a review lesson. The objective of the initial phase is to enable the student to distinguish and produce the sounds of French with sufficient accuracy to understand and speak…

Volume 2 of the Basic Course in French contains 10 lessons, one for each day of the first and second weeks of the intermediate phase. Every fifth lesson is a review lesson. The objective of the intermediate phase is to enable the student to distinguish and use the most essential structures of French. The approach is audio-lingual and…

This paper presents a number of hypotheses concerned with individual learning strategies based on a pre-experimental, observational case study. Three children (two seven-year-olds and one eleven-year-old) native speakers of Hebrew were the subjects of the study. The language data collected from them consisted of spontaneous speech about their…

This paper describes the functional-notional approach to language teaching and learning in terms of the ways it can be used to meet the communicative needs of the potential language learners, particularly adults, who vary in what they want to do in the target language. It contrasts the functional system with conventional approaches, illustrates…