The True Story of Oral Communication Education in Alabama: A Case of Academic Discrimination?

Abstract

Abstract Written communication and oral communication are inextricably linked as essential life skills and as desirable educational outcomes. However, there is a clear disconnect between what Alabama colleges expect of their graduates and what they are providing them in terms of oral communication education. The steps taken to develop the general studies curriculum for public colleges in Alabama are described. The current state of oral communication education in Alabama highlights inconsistencies between stated academic goals and the means to achieve them, and it exposes a cancer in the curriculum, “teaching” oral communication as a module in another discipline's course. Very few Alabama high school graduates have ever had an oral communication course, but they have all had four years of required English. The real debate is not whether oral communication should be included in the general studies curriculum but where to put it. Oral communication is currently an option in Area II—Humanities. The regional accrediting agency for public colleges in Alabama states that oral communication is a skill course, like English composition, that does not belong in the humanities. The recommendation is to move oral communication to Area I and rename it Communication—Written and Oral.