In response to new regulations for the preparation of teachers, the University of Calgary developed and implemented a new core curriculum, which had as its theme "communication in the school." The course outline was based on two assumptions: (a) that underlying almost everything a teacher does in a classroom or open area is the need to communicate with the students and (b) that since direct transfer of thought is virtually impossible, teacher and student must communicate by means of mutually intelligible signs--audible, visual, or kinesthetic--and build meanings between them by arranging sounds, marks, or movement in acceptable forms of consecutive or presentational discourse. The course as it is now taught consists of four elements: semantics, media, speech skills, and interaction. (The paper contains an extensive discussion of the samantic element of the course.) (JA)