SPEECH PROFESSIONALS, SPECIALIZING IN THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SPEECH BEHAVIOR AND COMMUNICATION, SHARE THE COMMON ASSUMPTIONS THAT (1) SPEECH IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT AND UNAVOIDABLE OF MAN'S LEARNED BEHAVIOR, (2) SPEECH IS THE HUMANISTIC CENTER FROM WHICH THE SEARCH FOR AND TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT MAN PROPERLY PROCEED, AND (3) EVERY…

Reflecting the opinions of both classical theorists and recent authors, 16 papers on rhetorical theory are collected in this publication. Selections in Part 1, concerned with the definition and objectives of rhetoric, are by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Kenneth Burke, Donald C. Bryant, and Martin Steinmann, Jr. In Part 2, selections from the pedagogy…

If dramatic characters are to be rendered "three dimensional" in performance, both the dramatist and the actor/interpreter must create them with proper attention to the physical, sociological, and psychological aspects of character. If oral interpreters understand these dimensions of a particular character, they can analyze such elements as…

This study examined the usefulness of an evaluation procedure designed to measure performance in spoken English. Rating involved assessment of the prose reading and conversation skills of 57 first-year students at Wellington Teachers' College, New Zealand. Specific topics of investigation included the consistency of "general impression" ratings…

A description of the use made by a college teacher in Germany of films in his language classes. Students provided the dialogue for silent films during class. Films were also used in this way for testing speaking ability. Motivation was high. It seemed to be successful as a testing technique. (AMH)

Offers suggestions for building oral communication programs. (FL)

The author cites facts about the deaf population, acoustics, and physiology to support her contention that total use of residual hearing in deaf persons should begin as early as possible and should be related to speech. (GW)

A report of classroom activities intended to alleviate the day-to-day communications problems" which students face. (Author/RD)

Describes a program that gives psychology students practice in written and oral communication. It involves students in writing an abstract of a journal article and in making an oral presentation. Writing and speaking skills, along with methodology, may be the most enduring legacy of introductory psychology courses. (CS)

Two training experiments were conducted to assess whether teaching grade 3 and 4 children to engage in comparison activity improves their referential communication performance (identifying a particular referent for a listerner) and message appraisal and production. Results demonstrated that comparison training improved childrens' referential…

The author states that the lecture is a valuable and necessary teaching method when used to help students synthesize information and understand relationships between concepts and to prepare them for discussion and practice. She offers ten suggestions for improving the effectiveness of the lecture. (MF)

Concerns research in the use of cloze tests to measure a particular language skill when a standardized paper-and-pencil test is not an obviously appropriate validating instrument. The conversational cloze test proved to be superior to a written or prose cloze test in measuring the students' oral ability. Statistical tables are given. (Author/PJM)