Trends, developments, and special needs in foreign language instruction are discussed in this speech. Priority is given to a definition and evaluation of the language skills, and suggestions are included for mastering listening, speaking, reading, and writing aspects of second languages. Related topics of culture, literature, linguistics, language…

The culturally disadvantaged child's lack of facility in oral expression is caused primarily by an inadequate vocabulary. Teaching practices capitalizing on the seemingly inherent high degree of physical involvement of the disadvantaged child have met with much success. Educational games, plays which call for imagination and emphasize correct…

Telephone interviews designed to elicit open-ended responses from disadvantaged kindergarten children were taped, analyzed, and scored to test the reliability of this interview technique in obtaining representative speech samples. To determine the effect of familiarity with telephones, one group of 12 children was provided with telephones in the…

Communicative competence in a second language is conditioned by the transfer of linguistic, heuristic and interactive aptitudes. A solution to the problems raised by this threefold transfer might be found in the conjunction of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic insights. A number of pedagogical techniques are suggested in order to show how the…

This textbook is designed for English-speaking students of Spanish. The distinctive feature of a microwave course is the emphasis on communicative use of each structural element as soon as it appears. The principal component is a series of 'cycles' which, because of their extreme shortness, have been given the name 'microwaves.' This text consists…

It is argued that knowledge about the testing of intonation in English as a foreign language is inadequate; the major problems are outlined and tentative suggestions are given. The basic problem is that the traditional foreign language teacher's conception of intonation is limited. A three-part definition of intonation is favored, with suggestions…

The comparatively small vowel inventory of Bantu languages leads young Bantu learners to produce "undifferentiations," so that, for example, the spoken forms of "hat,""hut,""heart" and "hurt" sound the same to a British ear. The two criteria for a non-native speaker's spoken performance are…

Quiet children form the largest group of learning-disabled students in the schools. This booklet is designed for teachers who wish to help such children. The first section provides a summary of current theory and research concerning reasons children are quiet, different kinds of quiet children, the phenomenon of communication apprehension, and…

The contrast between written language and oral language did not really begin to attract attention until second language teaching defined as its goal the acquisition of a communicative tool rather than a literary tool. This focus on communication made necessary the distinction between language used for oral communication and language used for…

This paper discusses some theoretical aspects of contrastive phonetics. A fundamental problem in contrasting the sound structure of two languages is the question of equivalence between the two sound systems. There are four possible criteria: (1) similar spelling; (2) similar phonetic description and transcription; (3) use of phonological criteria;…

The book presents information on the use of oral history as a classroom device. The first chapter discusses the evolution of oral history from a practice intended to preserve information on noted Americans to a way of preserving recollections of older Americans about the past. The second chapter explains why interviewing members of their own…

The primary objective of this course is to initiate students in the most important techniques of oral expression, such as conferences, discussion groups (debate, forum, symposium), and improvisational acting with the purpose of achieving the degree of oral expression that will help them find the means to express themselves orally with clarity,…

Brief discussions in this pamphlet suggest educational and career opportunities in the following fields of speech communication: rhetoric, public address, and communication; theatre, drama, and oral interpretation; radio, television, and film; speech pathology and audiology; speech science, phonetics, and linguistics; and speech education.…

Surveying 75 years of accomplishment in the field of spoken recording, this reference work critically evaluates commercially available recordings selected for excellence of execution, literary or historical merit, interest, and entertainment value. Some types of spoken records included are early recording, documentaries, lectures, interviews,…

The experimental program in remedial composition described in this interim report was designed on the assumption that students could best learn to write minimally acceptable compositions by imitating paragraph and essay models which have been divided into a series of incremental steps. The objectives of the program were to develop a heuristic…