Though speaking ability receives priority in FL teaching, grades are given with little attention to it. Tests in current use are examined; a new one is proposed. The individual test is preferred to group tests. Various aspects of the individual oral test are discussed. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Examines the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating educational debate into a marketing class. Notes that marketing debates can provide valuable experience both to help students learn various sides of controversial issues and to develop oral communication skills. (MM)

This study compared the use of reference cohesion in oral narratives produced by 93 students with and without learning disabilities (LD), ages 8-13 years. Results indicated significant group, age, and task effects. The specific kinds of reference cohesion problems exhibited by LD students involved accuracy of use and distance between reference…

Communication strategies are defined and a brief inventory of strategies for learning and oral interaction in a foreign language instruction setting is provided. Learning strategies are viewed as methods for exploiting available information to increase the efficiency of second language learning. The integration of learning strategies into the…

Intended to assist debaters and coaches who will be debating the 1983-84 national high school debate topic, this booklet combines discussion of general debate theory, and information specific to the topic: "What changes are most needed in the procedures used in the United States justice system?" The eight chapters of the booklet contain…

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…

Developed as a result of the growing interest in public speaking in business and other professional sectors, this annotated bibliography contains recent citations of public speaking and related subjects in the popular press. The citations are drawn from trade journals, magazines, and books in print, rather than from scholarly or academic works.…

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…

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…

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 radio course is useful in FL teaching, offering a basis for exercises in hearing and speaking, and with these, factual information. Examples are adduced, showing how to work with segments of the broadcast. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Communicative motivation is necessary for exercises leading to conversational ability; therefore "micro-conversation" is offered (and explained) as a replacement for traditional exercises for stimulating students to communicative response. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A report on a two-year teaching experience at the University of Paris' Department of Expression and Communication Sciences and Techniques (DESTEC), a multidisciplinary center for the study of language in its communicative function. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Teaching a unit on effective briefing techniques early in a basic speech class can develop in the student a sense of time consciousness, verbal conciseness, objectivity, appreciation for documentation, and logical organization. Briefing in this sense is a type of informative speech in which selected and compressed information is presented to one's…

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…