Reports on a study of language learners' comprehension of speech acts and discourse functions, referred to as pragmatic comprehension. Analyzes two types of learners' pragmatic misunderstandings: their failure to distinguish between phatic talk and referential talk, and their failure to identify the intended illocutionary force of indirect speech…

Discusses how listening is now being tested as three separate abilities, how test validity is affected by administration factors, criticisms of listening skills tests currently available, and criteria for development of reliable and valid listening tests. (MBR)

Reports that both first and third grade children found it hard to combine reading with listening and that there was a developmental trend toward selective attending. Discusses two theoretical approaches to the question of how children combine reading and listening. (AEA)

The role of subvocalization in 12 learning disabled (LD) adolescent readers' comprehension difficulties was studied. Nondisabled and LD readers were compared on silent reading and listening comprehension of noun lexical, verb lexical, semantic, and inferential sentences under conditions of suppressed and nonsuppressed subvocalization. (Author/SW)

Surveyed college representatives from 100 companies (56 percent response rate) to determine relative importance of communication skills (writing, listening, speaking, reading) to practicing engineers and of individual skills within each of these four areas for on-the-job performance. Listening/speaking skills were rated as most important, followed…

In a foreign language classroom, the students' job is that of mutual comprehension, among themselves and with the teacher, by not only attempting to understand but also understanding what is expected of them. It is this pattern of exchange that explains the slow rhythm and thematic progression of foreign language classes. (MSE)

Six journal articles (1972-1975) on auditory comprehension are presented, with their content and conclusions. These deal primarily with the objective evaluation of performance, giving suggestions for preparing and administering tests, example of game-type exercises, and other concrete suggestions. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This book is designed to give beginning students immediate help with English pronunciation. The book concentrates on topics, such as rhythm, intonation, and sounds as grammar cues, that will make the biggest difference in students' ability to understand and communicate with others. With its graphics-based approach, the book makes it possible to…

This paper emphasizes the connections between listening and the language arts. It lists advantages of students who are good listeners, such as students can learn more when listening well, and students learn to be polite by listening. In addition, the paper lists the following conditions which improve student listening: teaching and learning…

This teacher's guide is intended for the instruction of both French as a first language and French as a second language in immersion programs. It provides a host of strategies for teaching listening skills in the classroom in Grades 1 through 7. The first section is designed to bring the teacher's awareness to the training procedure. It discusses…

Noting that book clubs offer a balanced approach that respects the highly individualized nature of learning and utilizes guided reading, shared reading, listening, speaking, writing, and critical thinking skills, this book proposes how to organize and manage book clubs for young readers. The book provides suggestions on how to accomplish the…

As the instructional shortcomings of Focus on FormS and Focus on Meaning have surfaced, Focus on Form (i.e., drawing brief attention to linguistic forms while learners engage primarily in meaning) has slowly but steadily gained the attention of researchers and teachers. The research question underlying this study was whether Focus on Form could be…

This document is designed to be a companion to the "Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000: Theoretical Framework." It builds on the original document with an extensive listing of additional sample task ideas for reading, listening, speaking, and writing benchmarks. The document provides additional examples of tasks for stage I reading…

These medium-term plans have been produced to support, but not prescribe, teachers' planning. They exemplify ways in which England's National Literacy Strategy (NLS) Framework objectives (and the Early Learning Goals) can be clustered. The Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 medium term plans cluster the NLS text, sentence and word level objectives into…

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) requires that students demonstrate communication competency. It is up to the institution to demonstrate how these competencies are achieved. Broward Community College (Florida) chose to identify competencies using the National Communication Association (NCA) Sophomore Exit Level Speaking and…