students from both groups to measure the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. On the basis of these tests, Postovsky was able to make the following conclusions :¹³

1. In learning Russian, adult students develop better overall language proficiency when oral practice is delayed in the initial phase of instruction, provided, however, that this prevocal period is devoted to training in aural comprehension and written practice from spoken input.

2. There is high positive transfer of learning from writing to speaking, provided again that written practice is from spoken input.

3. In the initial phase of instruction, when written practice from spoken input is compared with oral practice of the same drill material, written practice develops better control of grammatical structure.

4. Introduction of the writing system (Cyrillic alphabet) prior to intensive pronunciation practice does not create a greater problem of graphic interference than the reverse sequence of presentation normally creates.

In a less formal experiment at Michigan State University, similar conclusions were reached as a result of focusing the initial learning on listening comprehension and delaying the oral response until students were ready. The Justin Morrill College intensive Russian program at Michigan State University began a project emphasizing listening comprehension as a focal skill in the fall of 1973.¹⁴The project utilised many of the procedures indicated in two major research efforts in which oral response was intentionally delayed in the early stages of language learning, and in addition developed new techniques and materials of its own.

Experiments by James Asher and by Valerian Postovsky both tended to confirm our suspicion that listening comprehension was crucial. They also provided guidelines of how we might proceed in our own project. Postovsky's efforts in which he replaced oral response with written response have been described. In an experiment focused on listening comprehension of German, Asher required no speaking whatsoever Instead, he required the students to respond to oral stimuli with a movement of the body. For example, the student was told: "Go to the table and pick up the mirror ! " The requests started simply and were first modeled by the instructor. Later, the vocabulary and structure became more complex. Some vocabulary, particularly abstract words, were written on cards and manipulated as objects. Asher noted that after 16 hours of instruction, the students on theirown volition pressed the instructor to let them speak. Once listening comprehension was achieved, transfer to the speaking skill was rapid. Transfer to the other skills was also rapid. In regard to reading Asher noted:

Although the experimental subjects far excelled the controls in listening skills, it was expected that perhaps the reverse would be true for reading skill. Since the training emphasis of the control group was reading and writing, we expected these students to have significantly higher reading comprehension scores. The results, using a 37 item reading test, showed no significant difference between groups. Surprisingly, even though the experimental subjects had no systematic training in reading, there was enough positive transfer from listening skill to make both groups quite similar in their reading achievement.¹⁶

The Justin Morrill College intensive Russian project focused on the learning of listening comprehension during the initial stages and utilised the written response technique as described by Postovsky and the Total Physical Response technique as described by Asher.¹⁷In addition, a programmed audio workbook was developed which utilized a technique named the Sens-it Cell, which is described more completely in other papers.^l8

The sens- it cell technique is a combination of the SEN: SIT concept formulated by I. A. Richards^l9and the SELective principle involved in discrimination training. Richards believed that a SENtence should always be introduced and coordinated with a SITuation which would give it meaning. Thus the SEN: SIT concept. The SENtence could be in written form as in his Language through Pictures series, or in an audio form as we did in the programmed audio workbook format. The SITuation in Richard's view could be a picture, an enactment or a verbal description. The total physical response technique described by Asher is a SEN: SIT technique which uses enactment for the SITuation. In the programmed audio workbook, pictures were used as the SITuation. The term " cell " refers to the SELection principle. In the programmed audio workbook, every SENtence was coordinated with a set of alternative SITuations and the student was forced to make a SELection or choice. His active choice decision response was immediately confirmed or denied through an immediate feedback technology known as latent image.²⁰

The Justin Morrill College Russian project at Michigan State University used a variety of response techniques including Total Physical Response, Written Response, and the Sens-it Cell. While the experiment was not conducted with as rigorous controls as the other experiments, the conclusions are similar to those of Asher, Postovsky as well as Winitz and Reed²¹all of whom utilize listening as a focal skill.

The Justin Morrill experience with 20 students involved in an intensive program (9 contact hours per week) over a period of 3 terms (30 weeks) led us to several tentative conclusions :²²

(a) Listening for comprehension is a logical initial focus in language learning; task overload may be minimized for students with marginal language aptitude by delaying oral response .