The Specialized Language Activities Program (ESEA Title 3 Project) to motivate students to improve their oral language was conducted in an essentially rural section of Maine with an experimental group and a control group of 80 ninth-grade students with an I.Q. range of 85-100 and poor language usage. Sixty-seven percent of them had repeated at least one grade. Interest-centered units designed to foster extemporaneous oral communication involved the experimental students in teamwork for the planning, writing, and filming of videotape productions. Composition projects, individual reading programs, and student involvement as technical assistants in other classes were also undertaken as part of the experiment, and these activities bolstered the students' self-images. Results of testing before and after participation in the program showed that the experimental group, compared to a control group, demonstrated significant gains in (1) I.Q., (2) reading capability, (3) written composition ability, (4) spoken English, and (5) attitudes toward school. (Thirteen tables of findings are included.) (JM)