Research on the communicative competency of faculty indicates that students can be motivated to learn by competent communicators. In general, communication experts have better competency skills, (i.e., they use more effective verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors) than do faculty as a whole. An area much in need of development for most faculty…

An ethnographic approach is taken to describe the development of student critical thinking in the Pittsburgh Discussion Project, focusing primarily on discussion experiences in three classes (one college-bound 9th-grade class and two mainstream 11th-grade classes) over the school year. Weekly discussions were audiotaped, and interviews were…

A study investigated the actual classroom use of American Sign Language (ASL) by 1,888 reading, mathematics, and social studies teachers of 4,500 hearing-impaired students. When asked directly, 140 teachers replied that they use ASL in the classroom. However, analysis of responses to a series of questions about specific communication behavior…

Current thinking about academic language and the variety of language appropriate to school and similar settings is discussed. Recent literature concerning academic language is explored, and common themes and significant observations that emerge when the concept is viewed from a sociological perspective are examined. The research reviewed includes…

Writing instructors at the School of New Resources (SNR), a Bachelor of Arts degree program designed specifically for adults over 21, follow a student-centered philosophy marked by students' responsibility for and participation in their own learning through small, interactive seminars. English courses are infused with a sensitivity to the special…

A technique for increasing student interest and participation which provides some of the benefits of individualized instruction includes daily homework assignments and short daily compositions. The daily homework assignments are only looked over, not corrected or graded. For the short daily compositions (three sentences for first-year classes, and…

Schools have been accused of being insensitive to students' cultural backgrounds, and thus of failing to serve some populations because instruction and curricula are designed for middle class children. But teachers should be cautious about applying the findings of ethnographic studies which address this problem. Although ethnographic studies…

Computer networks connecting members of a class can provide an effective, efficient means to exchange commentary, field and answer questions, submit and grade assignments, and post class information. Mainframe networks--large computers used by universities before the advent of microcomputers--serve the needs of many users at once. Mainframe users…

A study of classroom interaction in Ontario's French immersion programs is summarized. Transcripts of classroom interactions were analyzed for teaching practices that tend to decrease or encourage student speech. Results suggest that the use of language in immersion classrooms is not significantly different from language use in regular classes. It…

The social contexts students need to encourage productive collaboration in their writing can be provided by attending to various design features of the English microcomputer laboratory. Collaborative learning offers a powerful alternative to traditional classroom teaching methods and helps students become part of a community that approximates the…

Three essays concerning second language classroom activities that promote learning of communication skills are presented. In "From Manipulation to Communication" (Renate A. Schulz), the importance of establishing minimal communicative objectives for classroom instruction skills is discussed, specifying situations in which students have to…

A quality circle approach was implemented at Valley Forge Military Junior College during two semesters of an American History survey course. Student input into the academic progress of the course was at the root of the quality circle experiment, with students determining the type and frequency of written assignments, course structure, the…

Teaching always occurs in a rhetorical context. It involves discovering and maintaining a proper balance among three elements at work in any communicative effort: the available arguments about the subject itself, the interests and peculiarities of the audience, and the voice of the speaker. Teacher management of the classroom, writing assignments,…

A study related the communication responsiveness of instructors to the affective and cognitive outcomes of students in basic speech communication courses. Specifically, the study investigated both the instructors' overall responsiveness and their responsiveness as climate makers. The communication responsiveness of instructors was measured by the…

The popular model of collaborative learning views classrooms as contexts where nonmembers of "valued" communities become members by mastering accepted knowledge, discourse forms, and methods. Although attractive to educators, this model allows only for changes in individual students, not in "valued" communities. Further, its…