The general goal of this guide is to add a new dimension to the junior high school curriculum in French and Spanish. It is planned as a guide for the implementation of lessons to make students aware that knowledge of a foreign language plays an increasingly important role in many occupations. Three programs were developed around three clusters of…

The guide focuses on a rationale for exploratory foreign language courses in middle or junior high school, and on the goals and objectives for such courses. An exploratory course may serve a number of purposes regardless of whether or not a pupil elects a foreign language at a later time. These purposes include: (1) acquainting pupils with a…

This paper is based on my recent experiences as a classroom teacher in Coconut Island State School on Poruma (Coconut Island), a Torres Strait primary school, and discusses best practice in explicitly instructing Islander students in Standard Australian English grammar. I argue for a variety of approaches, informed by a careful consideration of…

A description of the twenty learning center units for advanced classes developed by the French and Spanish teacher-participants. Learning centers permit students to work independently at well-defined tasks. The units deal with housing, shopping, cooking, transportation, sports, fiestas, literature, history, architecture, painting, and music.…

Children from the German minority in Denmark were studied as part of a longitudinal sociolinguistic research project. Most spoke the Jutland (a Danish) dialect and picked up German as a second language when they started preschool, resulting in code-switching and interference in some cases, which appear to be manifestations of linguistic creativity…

The parameter-setting model of universal grammar provides a basis for integrating two theories of second language acquisition: contrastive analysis and creative construction. The elicited responses of adult native speakers of Spanish and adult native speakers of Japanese were examined. The head-initial/head-final parameter was the principle…

First-language acquisition of Turkish 4- to 8-year-olds in a Dutch submersion environment in the Netherlands was studied. Investigation of the development of lexical, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic abilities and comparison with children in Turkey suggested that the acquisition of first-language skills by Turkish children in the Netherlands is…

This policy brief describes the ongoing debates over the most appropriate methods for educating students, the need for stronger research into the educational attainment of English language learners (ELLs) and recommendations for developing quality programs for ELLs. The National Research Council (NRC) recommends that schools seek to implement…

Find out how a simple and inexpensive program of sustained silent reading--where students read independently during class time--can be a sure-fire way to improve student vocabulary development, literacy skills, and background knowledge. Teacher-author Steve Gardiner updates you on the research studies that validate sustained silent reading as a…

This collection of papers is divided into two parts. After "Introduction" (L. Kathy Heilenman), Part 1, "Research and Language Program Directors: The Relationship," includes "Research Domains and Language Program Direction" (Bill VanPatten); "Language Program Direction and the Modernist Agenda" (Celeste…

This paper examines how English language learners (ELLs) are provided for in the U.S. public school system and whether they are receiving an equitable education. It focuses on: the development of assessment and accountability in the education of ELLs; the education of ELLs in San Francisco, California, whether there was great controversy over how…

Papers for the fifth Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) Conference include the following papers: "The State and the Global Marketplace in the Provision of Minority Media Services" (George Jones); "Local Language Media: What Does It Take?" (Paul Lewis); "Power of the Media for the Good of Small Languages: An Indian…

These three journal issues contain the following articles: "Japanese at Mimosa Elementary School" (Azusa Uchihara); "A Successful Keypal Project Using Varied Technologies" (Jean L. Pacheco); "Promoting a Language-Proficient Society: What You Can Do" (Kathleen M. Marcos and Joy Kreeft Peyton); "Journal Reflections…

What is language proficiency? How does it interact with culture, human development, learning, and schooling? How can teachers best support English language learners (ELLs) and speakers of different English dialects? What are the current views of literacy acquisition and best approaches to literacy instruction? And how can assessments eliminate…

This report describes a three-year faculty development program that successfully transculturated approximately one-third of the faculty and professional staff at Texas A&I University, a state institution in which over 50 percent of the student body is Mexican American. Transculturation entails a change process that focuses on changing the…