Examines the modes of accommodation to America of working- and middle-class mothers of Cuban heritage living in Miami, Florida, in terms of language proficiencies. Findings indicate that working-class mothers encourage their children to learn English in order to succeed, a subtractive form of bilingualism, whereas middle-class mothers encourage…

Examines the phenomenon of language obsolescence by focusing on Breton- and non-Breton-speakers in France. Investigates linguistic preference, intergenerational transmission and attitudes towards language planning in an attempt to determine the extent to which the speakers themselves are catalysts in the process of language death. (27 references)…

Classroom interactions by two Black female second-grade teachers were observed to determine whether these teachers differed in their responses to students who showed Strong (high) versus Weak (low) Black and Nonstandard English usage. The teachers' level of knowledge of Black English was reflected in the success of their interactions. (TJH)

Compared day care and home-reared children's language performance. Results showed home and day care children did not differ on IQ or dependent language measures. IQ was strongest predictor of language performance; birth order was next strongest. Fathers' language activity time and parent educational level related to language performance.…

Traces the entry and exit criteria of transitional bilingual education programs through federal court decisions, laws, and regulations over the past decade. Examines the validity of the rules used to decide who needs transitional bilingual education. (MLF)

Describes the language-arts assessment instrument developed and piloted by a small urban school district that has a high percentage of students learning English as a Second Language. Developing the instrument, training teachers to be scorers, and the actual piloting of the reading and writing portions of the evaluation are detailed. (SLD)

Reports on a study of adult learners' use of the simple past tense that showed that past tense acquisition occurs in stages determined by the lexical aspects of verbs. The article also describes a pedagogical approach for increasing accurate past tense use through contextualized examples in authentic texts and focused noticing exercises. (Contains…

Discusses the importance of linguistic accuracy in proficiency-orientated foreign language programs, focusing on the experiences of college students in a summer intensive Chinese program. Linguistic inaccuracy is often the result of teachers focusing on form and meaning at the same time, fossilization, overuse of communicative strategies, lack of…

Uses Weinreich's (1953) partition of bilingualism to describe the effects of a small typological distance on the organization of the bilingual lexicon. Using standard Dutch and the dialect of Maastricht, subjects performed an auditory lexical decision task. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Examines Dade County (Florida) Public Schools' process for exiting limited English-proficient students (LEPSs) from the English-for-Speakers-of-Other-Languages (ESOL) Program. Results with 500 LEPSs show that exiters perform successfully in regular classrooms. The Stanford Achievement Test discriminated between LEPS and non-LEPS performance on…

A study was conducted to identify appropriate standardized tests of English second-language proficiency among foreign high school students after a three-month stay, for use in a battery of tests to determine achievement gains. Identification of three potential tests and further considerations in selecting the appropriate test are reported here.…

A teacher's interviews with 20 former English-as-a-Second-Language (ESOL) students illustrates ways in which they have adapted to life in the United States and how they have improved, or failed to improve, their English. The subjects' stories are material for the teacher's current classes. (SLD)

Analysis of the use of a cloze-procedure test to measure the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) proficiency of Japanese college students revealed that the cloze test correlated significantly with an essay test and improved prediction of ESL proficiency, suggesting that carefully constructed cloze tests could be useful in integrative language…

Reports on a study of cultural images of people in 5 nations by 24 10- to 13-year-old children of low socioeconomic backgrounds. Finds that 10-year olds focused on the thoughts and feelings of people whereas the 13-year olds included more knowledge abstracted to the country level. (CFR)

This article examines Swedish efforts to evaluate foreign-language achievement in compulsory (elementary and early secondary) schools. Evaluations conducted in 1989 and 1992 found that goal achievement in English-as-a-Second-Language instruction is largely in line with prescribed curriculum objectives. Contains 27 references. (MDM)