A competency based learning approach as applied to public address instructional development can help to achieve the following goals: (1) to enable students to grasp the history of the period under study, (2) to enable students to develop and apply rhetorical criticism skills, (3) to provide students with a course format of high interest value, (4) to enable students to perceive the relationship between history and rhetoric, and (5) to allow students to develop research skills useful for studying other historical periods. Five learning structures can be defined in this particular approach: signal learning, chain learning, multiple discrimination, concept formation, and principle formation. To develop such a course it is important to recognize that a reciprocal relationship exists between course objectives, material selection, learning structures, and teaching tactics. A matrix analysis helps to determine whether the proposed course material is purposeful. A competency based approach gives students confidence and enables them to move beyond memorization of materials to an analysis and evaluation of the relationship of rhetoric and events. (HOD)