Two hundred questionnaires were sent to high school speech teachers in Texas to determine their attitudes toward peer evaluation, a method of critiquing speech class activities. Results indicated that these teachers are familiar with and use peer evaluation and that they do favor it as an evaluation technique. Women used peer evaluation more than men, and teachers with more experience used peer evaluation more than those less experienced. Peer evaluation was used most for speeches and oral interpretation and least for parliamentary procedure. Peer evaluation helps students learn the criteria upon which an oral presentation is evaluated, keeps the students busy, and helps the students become better listeners. Its values outweigh its drawbacks.

An intervention, which targeted three- and four-year-old children's oral language, was developed for this study. The intervention was run over twice-weekly sessions, for ten weeks. Incorporating good Early Years practice, the first session in the week was a group shared storybook reading session with a puppet, where dialogic discussion took place and the children practised sequencing the story using visual prompts. The second weekly session consisted of planning, acting out and reviewing a planned pretend play episode based on the storybook which was read in that week's first session. Ninety-four children were randomly assigned to a control or treatment group and were tested at pre- and post-test on a battery of vocabulary and narrative assessments. The results of a Randomised Control Trial were positive in favour of the intervention. The most important of these results was a statistically significant effect on the receptive vocabulary of the children in the treatment group, with a large effect size, as measured by the standardised British Picture Vocabulary Scales (Dunn et al., 1997). There was also a significant effect on productive vocabulary, as measured by a Researcher-Designed Vocabulary Test (RDVT). This test was devised for the purpose of this study, testing one-word vocabulary, taken directly from the storybooks in the intervention. As this is not a norm-referenced, standardised test, caution is advisable in the interpretation of this result. A further positive effect concerned the narrative skills of the children in the treatment group, when compared to the children in a control group - the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) score was higher in the treatment group, with a medium effect size. By examining the intervention by Randomised Control Trial, this study responds to the call from Lillard et al (2013) for more experimental research on pretend play and narrative. The acknowledgement of the role of the adult in the intervention coupled with the positive effect on the children's MLU and receptive vocabulary mean that the intervention, with further development, has the potential to be used as a Professional Development tool for supporting language development in the Early Years in the UK, in the future.

The problem of this study is that of developing a speech and drama program for Tyler State College which is consistent with the philosophical framework of the college as well as with the scope of upper-division institutions in Texas as stated by the Coordinating Board, Texas College and University System. Emphasis is placed on the matriculation of students from junior colleges within commuting distance of Tyler.

The problem with which this thesis is concerned is the definition, justification, and implementation of behavioral objectives as they relate to Speech Communication and Drama courses. Chapter One provides definition and justification of behavioral objectives. In Chapter Two, the process of writing the objectives is explained. Chapter Three contains examples of behavioral objectives which could be implemented in two of the basic courses in the Speech Communication and Drama Department at North Texas State University. Chapter Four furnishes examples for two courses which are based on more specific content. Chapter Five contains conclusions. Evidence indicates that behavioral objectives facilitate learning and accrue advantages to parents, administrators, teachers, and students. The teacher of Speech Communication and Drama can no longer ignore the behavioral precepts.

L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de connaitre les caractéristiques du genre textuel de l’exposé oral en basque, en prenant appui sur des données empiriques, soit un corpus de textes produits par des étudiants bilingues français-basque de Licence Etudes basques, futurs enseignants. Ainsi cette étude met en évidence les acquis et les carences rencontrés dans les textes produits, le compte rendu de lecture critique d’une œuvre littéraire, défini comme sous genre de l’exposé oral, qui est une pratique très courante dans l’institution scolaire. L'analyse prend appui sur l’architecture interne des textes (Bronckart, 1996) qui étudie plusieurs aspects discursifs : l’analyse de la situation de communication, la planification textuelle et les contenus thématiques, les éléments de cohésion et de connexion, la prise en charge énonciative. Cette étude s’achève sur une proposition de pistes didactiques et notamment une séquence didactique (Dolz et Schneuwly, 1998), à partir des résultats obtenus, en vue d’un apprentissage de l’exposé oral comme genre textuel. Des ateliers permettent l’étude des organisateurs textuels, des articulations temporelles, des recours de modalisations, de l’interlocution orale, etc. / The main objective of this thesis is to know how the textual genre of the oral presentation in Basque works. This explanation will be based on empiric data: a texts' corpus produced by bilingual (French-Basque speakers) students from the Basque Studies' Department, teachers-to-become. Thus, this study shows the benefits and the lacks encountered in the productions which can be defined as a sub-gender of the oral presentation exercise: the report of a critical reading concerning a piece of literature which is a common practise in the educational institution. This analysis relies on the internal texts' structure (Bronckart, 1996) which considers several aspects of the speech: to analyse the communication situation, the textual planification and the thematic contents, the cohesion and connexion elements and how the enonciation are taken over. This study will end up on a suggestion of didactic solutions and more precisely a didactic sequence (Dolz and Schneuwly, 1998), where the obtained results will enable to improve the oral presentation as a textual genre. Some working groups can make the textual organisation tools, time articulations, modalisation skills or oral interlucations be developed.

In Japan, English education in elementary schools is still in the process of innovation. The purpose of this project is to seek the most appropriate and effective way for elementary-level students to acquire listening skills in a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) environment.

Speech is the most common and the most fundamental tool used for communication. It has done more for man's progress than any other single factor. Yet this high development of man has been relatively ignored, and for generations speech instruction has been partially neglected in the elementary schools. / "Presented to the Faculty of the School of Education Florida State University." / "In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Education." / "July, 1949." / Advisor: Dr. Robert C. Moon, Major Professor. / Typescript. / Added title page: A two year study of speech instruction of a group of children in Jackson Heights School, Tampa, Florida. / Includes bibliographical references.

Advisor: Mary E. Wood. xii, 181 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm. Print copy also available for check out and consultation in the University of Oregon's library under the call number: PS374.S714 H37 2004. / The nineteenth-century American sentimental novel has only in the last twenty years received consideration from the academy as a legitimate literary tradition. During that time feminist scholars have argued that sentimental novels performed important cultural work and represent an important literary tradition. This dissertation contributes to the scholarship by placing the sentimental novel within a larger context of intellectual history as a tradition that draws upon theoretical sources and is a source itself for later cultural developments. In examining a variety of sentimental novels, I establish the moral sense philosophy as the theoretical basis of the sentimental novel's pathetic appeals and its theories of sociability and justice. The dissertation also addresses the aesthetic features of the sentimental novel and demonstrates again the tradition's connection to moral sense philosophy but within the context of the American elocution revolution. I look at natural language theory to render more legible the moments of emotional spectacle that are the signature of sentimental aesthetics. The second half of the dissertation demonstrates a connection between the sentimental novel and silent film. Both mediums rely on a common aesthetic storehouse for signifying emotions. The last two chapters of the dissertation compare silent film performance with emotional displays in the sentimental novel and in elocution and acting manuals. I also demonstrate that the films of D. W. Griffith, especially The Birth of a Nation, draw upon on the larger conventions of the sentimental novel.