This study validated the Student Oral Proficiency Assessment (SOPA), an oral proficiency instrument designed for students in elementary foreign language programs. Elementary students who were tested with the SOPA were also administered other instruments designed to measure proficiency. These instruments included the Stanford Foreign Language Oral…

A study investigated the Educational Testing Service's claim about the conversational nature of the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) from the perspective of native speakers of the target second language. Eight subjects listened to 16 randomly-selected OPI communicative speech events, and their perceptions were measured using a semantic…

This paper asks how findings from emergent literacy (the study of the reading and writing behaviors that develop into conventional literacy) can combine with findings from oral language development to expand the services provided to preschoolers with language impairments. After giving an overview of major concepts and research of emergent…

A problem was addressed within the context of the action based research practicum model. The problem was junior high school special education students who read at or below the 10th percentile when compared to age appropriate peers on standardized achievement instruments; and who have had all manner of reading interventions and yet continue to fall…

Many storytellers, educators, and researchers advocate that storytelling can contribute significantly to early literacy development. Early childhood education needs to embrace literacy programs that actively employ storytelling to bridge students' established oracy skills and their newfound literacy skills. By doing this, children will encounter a…

This is the fifth paper published by The Centre for Literacy in its Working Papers on Literacy series, which presents new perspectives on literacy-related topics relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. This paper was adapted from a longer manuscript submitted by Kieran Egan in 1999 for the UNESCO Award for Research in Adult…

Biological theories of adaptation are used to generate a model of human cognitive development in which physiological and cognitive change in aged persons can be understood as an adaptive stage of development. Related literature is reviewed that focuses on the elderly as information transmitters and on the psychology of "telling."…

Argues that children with limited English-speaking ability are often misdiagnosed as poor readers on formal and informal measures of reading ability. Offers suggestions for management of true miscues made in oral reading. (FL)

Discusses the value of rhymes in developing children's concepts of story and pleasure in reading. (HOD)

Examines materials in the ERIC system related to children's early oral language and the transition from home language to the more formal language used in school. Offers activities for a classroom climate that is responsive to children's oral language development needs. (HTH)

The instructional designer in language instruction can choose a central function (e.g., describing) and build a teaching unit around it. The process involves choosing a situation that best displays the core function, determining possible secondary functions, discussing the personalities involved, and determining the formality or familiarity of the…

Concludes that, with the exception of number of adverb clauses per T-unit, the oral and written language of first grade children was similar in syntactic complexity. (FL)

Examines notions and examples of instruction that can inhibit language growth, arguing that reading and writing curricula can be designed so that children are provided the freedom to explore language and grow as language learners in much the same way they learned oral language. (HTH)

Describes how, through pantomime, language learners can be encouraged to participate orally in classroom activities without feeling the pressure of having to perform. This technique requires the teacher to act out simple situations before the class while the students work together to interpret his/her gestures. (Author/MES)

Experiments supported the following: (1) output-error assumption, by finding larger emotional responses for verbal slips than for correct vocalizations; (2) editing assumption, by finding that edited vocal responses require more processing time than unedited responses; (3) social acceptability editing criterion, by observing that neutral verbal…