Shows how a partnership between the technical or business communication course and business and industry yields positive results for all concerned--students, business and industrial managers, instructors, and the community college itself. (EL)

Recounts students' reactions to the videotaping of their speeches in three speech communication classes. Shows how the students found the taping experience valuable. (EL)

Study considers teachers' evaluations of students who perform equivalently in written academic work but who have distinct speech varieties including Spanish-influenced English. Despite length of teaching experience and teacher ethnicity, all teachers favored the non-Spanish-influenced speakers. (SL)

Writing, speaking and listening are communication skills that are important in all subject areas in the curriculum. Hence, literacy should have a central position in the curriculum. Even so, differences between students' levels of literacy mean that some students fail to acquire the verbal foundations for learning. For this reason, increasing…

A study investigated how non-native speakers of English used linguistic and non-linguistic skills to manage interaction in an interview-style verbal test of English proficiency. Subjects were eight international teaching assistants, four native speakers of Spanish and four native speakers of Chinese, who took a standardized oral interview…

This document provides indepth study and support of the "Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000" (CLB 2000). In order to make the CLB 2000 usable, the competencies and standards were considerably compressed and simplified, and much of the indepth discussion of language ability or proficiency was omitted, at publication. This document…

This study explored the roles that two parents played in their daughter's English education during the initial period after moving to the United States. For English language learners (ELLS) with limited first language schooling in the home country, it usually takes several years to demonstrate cognitive academic language proficiency. For ELL…

A four-phase composition unit helps adolescents solidify their sense of identity and build self-confidence while they improve their written, oral, research, and inquiry skills. The unit requires students to explore their relationships with family, friends, school, and community. (SB)

Describes a one-semester conversational course taught at Harvard University designed to teach basic oral communication skills in French with the main emphasis on teaching students to pause while speaking. (AM)

This paper presents the case of a child who at age 3;3 showed a marked schism between two branches of language functioning; he had control of language as a system for expressing syntactic-semantic relations but not as a system of interpersonal communication. (CFM)

A method for highlighting aspects of oral communication for French second-language learners is described. Students are videotaped mimicking a one-minute passage in French, which is recorded over the video. The dubbed student performance illustrates the role of body language, rhythm, intonation, and other factors in speech. (MSE)

Investigated the efficacy of two related reciprocal teaching interventions--with cooperative grouping or with cross-age tutoring--on the reading comprehension of learning disabled English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. Found no significant difference between the two groups: both made comprehension gains and continued to improved when…

This study compared 20 young deaf children with either exceptionally good or exceptionally poor spoken language for their hearing loss, age, and intelligence. Factors associated with high performance included earlier use of binaural ear-level aids, better educated mothers, auditory/verbal or auditory/oral instruction, reliance on spoken language…

This collection of essays on pronunciation theory and practice as it relates to second language instruction includes: "Pronunciation Assessment in the ESL/EFL Curriculum" (Janet Goodwin, Donna Brinton, Marianne Celce-Murcia); "Empowering Students with Predictive Skills" (Wayne B. Dickerson); "Intonation: A Navigation Guide for the Listener" (Judy…

A study examined beliefs about language learning held by students of Arabic and Swahili in six African studies programs. A survey administered to 134 students gathered demographic information and student attitudes about 47 statements concerning language learning strategies, ability, usefulness, and skill difficulty, multilingualism, and reasons…