Audience Learning Research Articles

Comparing forms of new higher education organisations at start‐up

In this article, we investigate three recently established entrepreneurial organisations created to deliver education and training to new audiences of learners at a distance. Each of the organisations -- the University of Michigan's Academic Outreach Program, the University Center at Northwestern Michigan College, and the Michigan Virtual Automotive College -- is involved in multiple complex partnerships with internal and external entities, including government, industry, and education. Paying particular attention to the structures, strategies, and processes of these organisations, we argue that their emergence signals the evolution of a postsecondary knowledge industry in which permeable boundaries, new competitors, and market sensibilities are converging to challenge the fundamental nature of postsecondary education.

Audience in Language Teaching and Learning

This article reports on a case study of a technique aimed to increase the pragmatic competence of adult learners of English as a foreign or second language. In this study students are exposed to real audiences in authentic settings. The results show that students learned the subtle effect cultural and social factors can have on a speech event in a way that is difficult to recreate in a classroom setting.

Teaching For The Future By Reaching Into The Past

I am pleased-and flattered-to have such a distinguished and learned audience today. Just think: there are probably more history-minded persons in this room right now than anywhere else in the United States. That is a great credit to the organizers of this conference. Speaking at such an occasion as today's though, I am reminded of something Winston Churchill once said. A listener asked him, "Doesn't it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you speak the hall is packed to overflowing?" Sir Winston replied, "It is quite flattering, but whenever I feel this way I always remember that, if instead of making a speech, I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big."1

Teaching Grammar in the Target Language

Conducting a class through sustained L2 use is a concept which provides for a major block of classroom time without oral L1 (first language) intervention. During this period, oral L2 is proposed for exclusive use to support goals for developing oral communicative skills. Frequent shifts by the teacher between L1 and L2 are seen to restrict opportunity for uninterrupted L2 listening,1 a phenomenon hypothesized to carry over to student oral production also, as it influences learners to disregard L2 when communicating in the classroom. The nature of grammar learning is complex and under considerable debate. It is not clear how much learners need to be told about grammar nor how much practice they require. If the grammar presentation is highly detailed, especially on the beginning level, Li is likely to be used, since its complexity defies comprehension in L2. It is likewise apt to be done in L1 if it requires students to verbalize rules, a questionable practice, since few students, according to Sharwood Smith, seem to be able to do it. If, on the other hand, the explanation is limited to a degree of explicitness which serves to introduce the grammar point, followed by induction-inducing practice, then communication might well be in L2. A problem encountered in literature on grammar teaching is the absence of clear identification of the level of students being taught. A specialized context involving learners who have little or no difficulty communicating in L2 but who would profit by instruction on refining their grammar skill must not be confused with students in developmental stages of communication. Much of the literature assumes an audience of learners presumed proficient in communication; hence it need not address the question of which language, L1 or L2, will be the vehicle for explanation.2 In such a situation, an L1/L2 mixture may be acceptable, since the learners can receive and discuss information in either language. Such a scenario has no resemblance to that of schools in which massive numbers of students studying Spanish as a second language, including many in advanced courses, are struggling to learn to communicate in Spanish. It is this scenario in which one must decide which language, Li or L2, shall be the languag of instruction. In order to make this decision, one must attend to identifying instructional goals which, for many teachers, will be directed toward developing commonly sought after communication skills, with considerable emphasis on listening and speaking. In conjunction with goal setting, it is crucial to deliberate on instructional processes, vis-avis the language of instruction, to provide for congruence between goals and processes. A prime issue affecting these decisions is how much oral L2 use contributes to or interf res with goal attainment. Experimental evidence is minimal, especially in terms of L2 use in which caretaker speech and other psychological variables are built into the design. However, results of two studies by Seliger suggest a general guideline to the effect that using the target language as a tool for social i t raction affects the rate of second language and the quality of second language acquisition (262). Social interaction includes a variety of communicative situations in which genuine talk takes place. Information giving, a part of this process, could encompass grammar explanation. Teachers, through practical experience, know what works in including grammar explanation in L2. Commonly used techniques are reflected in the concept of comprehensible input which utilizes caretaker speech in the form of linguistic supports (e.g., short utterances, simple vocabulary and syntax, repetitions) and extralinguistic supports (e.g., motor activity, use of visuals) [Kalivoda]. Sharwood Smith (54), in his Type C gramar manifestations, refers to the need for b ief, indirect 'clues' as facilitating techniques. Rutherford (235) adds other possibilities such as the use of a contrast with a related structure or with selected ungram-

A special continuing medical education project

Planning cost-effective educational exercises for adult learners is a task that requires detailed knowledge of several issues. Early in the program's design educational planners must consider the nature of the learning audience, their preferred learning methods, the selection of educational priorities, the setting of educational objectives, the delivery of the education, and the evaluation of the impact. This article addresses the planning of a continuing educational program for family physicians engaged in active office practice. The educational program's goal is to facilitate a change in the learners' practice patterns or to change their practice behaviors. Teaching approaches in keeping with the program's goals and the physicians' preferred learning methods were considered at an early stage in the planning phase.

The Elementary Types of Government

IN TRYING TO ACHIEVE THE SIMPLICITY OF, IN SOME SENSE, scientific statements one must either, in the counsels of the wise, be very laboured or very brief. I want to be very brief and to use an essay as an essay, an attempt to try something out or on before a learned audience, or a timely speculation (that is, in time to be stopped) about whether a possible future voyage is worth undertaking, not an account of actual discovery.

Unobtrusive Communication.

This collection of essays, written over a period of time and published in Holland, is addressed to a learned audience. While most people know Dr. Meerloo through his contributions to social psychology (<i>Total War and the Human Mind</i>, 1946;<i>Delusion and Mass Delusion</i>, 1949;<i>The Two Faces of Man</i>, 1954;<i>That Difficult Peace</i>, 1961;<i>Suicide and Mass Suicide</i>, 1962) he written extensively in field of social communication. His books,<i>Conversation and Communication</i>(1952) and<i>Rape of the Mind</i>(1956), have now been followed by a number of articles collected in<i>Unobtrusive Communication</i>(1964). The field of social communication as distinct from machine communication has as its task the description and conceptualization of the processes that mediate human relations. Behind such studies lies, of the implicit hope that Knowledge of social communication will lead to some therapeutic or preventive procedures which would mitigate less desirable forms of human

The Eminent Dignity of Literature

It is unnecessary to remind this learned audience that the title of this paper was borrowed from the eloquent sermon of Bossuet, delivered almost three hundred years ago, on “The Eminent Dignity of the Poor in the Church.” My feeble voice cannot emulate the majestic periods of the great orator. My only ambition is, in a familiar sermon, to define the position granted to our studies in modern society,—a position somewhat similar to that of the poor in the aristocratic society of the seventeenth century. My purpose is to claim for them the eminent dignity which belongs to them, and to justify the recognition they should obtain at least in academic circles.

Musical Settings of Horace's Lyric Poems

It was with such diffidence as becomes an amateur that I yielded to an invitation to read a paper before the Musical Association. For some three years I have at intervals collected notes of musical settings of Classical—that is to say, Greek and Latin—lyrics, excluding those which occur in the drama. I have paid particular attention to one author—Horace, but even in this instance my notes are in many places defective, partly because I was unable, owing to the war, to consult friends and colleagues abroad, and partly because I had not the leisure to make any systematic attempt to exhaust the sources of information nearer at hand. Hence it is that the chief reason for my reluctance to face this learned audience—my inadequate equipment—became in the end the chief reason for my acceptance of your flattering invitation. By bringing my subject to the notice of musicians I hoped to gather more material, and I shall be grateful to any members of the Association who may add to my store.

A Further Three Years’ Flying Experience

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I think perhaps the title of my paper requires a short explanation before beginning.A little over three years ago I was honoured by being asked to read a paper on Hying before this Society, which I then called, “Three Years’ Flying Experience.” I need hardly say that paper caused me no small amount of anxiety in preparing, even then, when a mere description of an ordinary flight would deeply interest most people, because when I came to get down to it I had to ask myself what there was I could find to talk about that would interest the learned and technical audience I knew I should have to face.