This paper describes a faculty resource team in the Bradley University (Illinois) Department of Industrial Engineering that works with student project teams in an effort to improve their visualization and oral presentation skills. Students use state of the art technology to develop and display their visuals. In addition to technology, students are…

A procedure for implementing a 24-day intensive language course that involves eight thematic lesson plans uses a 3-day cycle of instruction based on the Lozanov method. The classroom is organized to be as free as possible from typical classroom associations, using chairs in a semi-circle without tables or desks. The first 3 days are structured to…

A study examined procedures used to test the oral communication skills of students between the ages of 15 and 18 in the United Kingdom, with special attention given to strategies which might be of value to adopt in the United States. Subjects were 4 pairs of students tested from a randomly selected sample of 112 schools. Twenty-two assessors were…

Guidelines are offered for helping gifted high school students present oral and written presentations of individual learning projects. Students need to work toward a goal and accept responsibility for presenting the project formally. Written reports foster discipline, completed projects, and documentation for further study. Verbal reports offer…

The keeping of journals by students in the basic speech course is the focus of this paper, which is divided into three parts. Part 1 examines the benefits of journal use to students and teachers and points out that three types of learning can thus be encouraged: the development of thinking skills, personal growth, and content learning. It also…

A study was conducted to determine if changes in a student's writing and speaking skills over the period of a semester could be measured reliably and to measure what changes, if any, occur in these skills over this period. A pretest-posttest design employing the speech and writing portions of ACT's College Outcome Measures Project was used to…

Recognizing that each student is different in terms of communication apprehension and needed skills, the confidence model attempts to provide instruction in anxiety reduction and skill development, combining the features of both the behavior therapy and the rhetoritherapy theories of communication apprehension. The rational emotive therapy used in…

Few studies have approached the subject of lying from a rhetorical perspective. Even philosophical studies have concentrated more on truth than on deceit. A central concern of a definition of lying is to recognize that lies must be examined both from the speaker's position and from the perceptions of the listener. Such an examination can be done…

No teaching method is more widely used and yet more strongly criticized than the lecture. Yet, an examination of more than 40 basic public speaking textbooks reveals that lecturing is seldom mentioned. There are, perhaps, several reasons for this omission. For example, authors of textbooks might feel that (1) material on lecturing duplicates their…

A study examined the information processing construct of the speech rating error paradigm. Specifically, it tested the hypotheses that (1) attitude valence and dogmatism would interact in such a way that low dogmatic raters would show a positive trait error on the content traits material and analysis; (2) low dogmatic raters would evaluate a…

In a survey of commercial braodcasters, 80% of the respondents felt that university communications majors seeking on-the-air, nonnews jobs were unqualified for their chosen profession. Because teachers of oral interpretation possess the performance expertise that broadcasters need, they must be more actively involved in teaching broadcast…

Using some of the tools of fantasy theme analysis, this paper analyzes the rhetoric of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the United States Civil War, as an expression of the rhetorical visions of the American South. Specifically, the paper deals with two speeches--Davis's farewell to the United States Senate, from which he…

Issues related to a national assessment of speaking and listening skills include the specification of the domain of communication competencies, the selection of measurement strategies, and the elimination of racial and ethnic bias. A project committee proposed that the domain of national assessment spans three dimensions: function (informing,…

Student interest prompted the formation of a Speaker's Bureau in Seminole Senior High School, Seminole, Florida. First, students compiled a list of community contacts, including civic clubs, churches, retirement villages, newspaper offices, and the County School Administration media center. A letter of introduction was composed and speaking…

Methods are offered for adapting traditional techniques for teaching more communicative listening and speaking skills in a foreign language. New vocabulary is introduced by using pictures, either prepared or teacher-developed, illustrating the desired lesson. Written statements about the characters, activities, and objects in the pictures are used…