A verbal skills curriculum program, designed for use with United States Navy recruits with deficiencies in English language listening and speaking skills was field tested at a recruit training station in Florida. The curriculum was self-paced and was composed of three learning modules: Navy-related vocabulary, grammatical structures, and language fluency. Subjects were 45 recruits, mainly from Puerto Rico, who completed the program in a 15-day course of study. A variety of reading and English fluency tests were administered as pretests and posttests to the recruits and to a control group. Results showed that the attrition rate was significantly lower for recruits in the program than for those in the control group. While English listening and speaking skills also improved, an economic analysis showed that these gains were achieved only with significant increases in costs associated with each recruit completing training. (An appendix contains excerpts from the curriculum guide.) (FL)