Self-help activities designed to practice and improve communication are outlined. Sixteen learning activities are proposed that are based on assertiveness training. They can be used on all language levels to develop all four skills. (Author/AMH)

The rationale for delayed oral practice in language teaching is that the same rules underlie both speaking and listening and that the student has to understand how a language works before being capable of creating a sentence in the language. Having to focus on speaking performance as well as on listening comprehension distracts the learner from…

Talk is proposed as the subject matter of foreign language courses. The key to acquiring liberated expression lies in the assimilation of the learner to the target culture. Once he/she is assimilated, the learner's involvement in a situation matches the involvement of natives of the target culture. For example, faced with some life circumstance…