This article suggests that to better prepare students for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) oral proficiency interview, it is up to instructors to see that these students are better prepared in oral, creative speech. Bridging exercises between dialogue memorization and personalized situations can be used to help…

For the past 25 years, controversy has developed over the value and use of African-American (AA) English. This study examined the opinions of AAs from a variety of backgrounds and communities in California and Georgia to obtain their views on AA English; its place in the school, in the community, and in AA heritage; and its role in the futures of…

This paper considers the process by which humans are able to select from the complex string of sounds impinging on the ear and understand certain frequency combinations to be linguistic signals while other combinations are not. A brief review of the complex subcortical region, particularly the known but seldom studied reticular system, indicates…

The Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview (SOPI) is a semi-direct performance-based speaking test that emulates the face-to-face Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) as closely as practical, using a tape recording and printed test booklet. The prototypical SOPI contains simple personal background questions typical of an initial encounter (warm-up) and…

A discussion of Hungarian spoken discourse focuses on the role of two pragmatic connectives, "hat" ("well, so (after all)") and "mert" ("because"). Introductory sections discuss the classification of utterance-types as a prerequisite to analyzing discourse and the utterance-type as defined by pragmatic…

In this pilot study looking at interlanguage prosody, normal, and contrastively focused constructions in English were collected from four English-as-a-first-language speakers and four Japanese-as-a-first-language speakers. These productions were then played to six native English speakers to see how well they could identify the stress placement of…

A discussion of speech behavior and social distance outlines the major ways in which the study of rules of speaking can provide insights into the norms and values of a speech community. It shows ways in which the same material can provide information about the interaction process and the situations in which interlocutors negotiate their…

A study investigated whether second language (L2) learners' participation in negotiation with native speakers (NSs) meets their needs for data on L2 lexical and structural features. The question was addressed through an analysis of NS utterances of negotiation that were produced as 20 native speaker-non-native speaker (NS-NNS) dyads carried out…

This curriculum guide, designed for use with migrant students, provides oral language activities in listening comprehension, critical listening, oral expression, and vocabulary development. The activities within the four broad categories are divided into the following specific skills: (1) simple directions; (2) complex directions; (3) main idea;…

Approaches used by linguists to examine the way in which speakers or writers modify their commitment to the propositional content of their utterances are discussed, and it is noted that a frequent criticism is the failure of inexperienced speakers or writers to modulate their utterances properly. This paper considers economic reports and in…

A study investigated factors in design of oral language comprehension tests and their relevance in determining actual language proficiency, focusing on the tests' decoding requirements. Task-based, interactive oral language tests were designed: (1) to elicit information about integration of first (L1) and second languages (L2) in the learner's…

This book demonstrates the importance of storytelling as an aspect of language arts programs. The book contains stories contributed by teachers from elementary through university levels. It also describes many of the ways storytelling can be woven into the fabric of the classroom curriculum. The collection is divided into three sections. The first…

Orality and literacy are not antithetical, rather they exist in a complex symbiosis at the individual, family, and community levels. Such a symbiosis is inevitable and appears in all kinds of institutions, including economic, political, social, cultural, and educatonal institutions. Out of this relationship, "printspeak" has emerged. Printspeak is…

An analysis of one theory of the acquisition of head movement by children is presented, using longitudinal data from the Mayan language, K'iche'. This theory assumes that children would just require positive evidence of head movement in the input language to instantiate the constructions of their own grammar. The Incorporation Theory addresses the…

This oral language program, designed for children ages 3 to 5, is divided into 11 sections covering the themes of self and senses; family, home, and friends; teddy bears; school and community; colors; food; animals; clothes; summer fun; holidays; and vehicles. Numerous cutouts are provided to prepare for the activities in this book, and each…