Teachers should build on students' existing speech patterns, helping students to gain aural understanding of standard English, and providing oral and written practice. (NH)

Describes the procedures used in a study designed to examine differences in nonstandard grammatical usage among and between Negro and white working-class informants in the community of Alexandria, Virginia. (Author/FB)

A report from the Educational Resources Information Center at the Center for Applied Linguistics; describes the bi-dialectal approach to second dialect acquisition; ERIC abstracts are included for documents pertinent to this topic. (SW)

A study conducted to examine in detail the oral reading performance and comprehension of five poor readers among college freshmen at Tennessee State University confirms the belief that dialects need not interfere with reading or with learning to read. (AOS)

Undertakes a critical examination of the basic premises underlying linguistic and conceptual training programs for preschool children. Shows how widely used preschool programs are based on inadequate assumptions concerning language, language use, and communication. (Author/BRR)

Analyzes some of the educational problems that can arise from teachers' lack of awareness of the systematic differences between standard English and nonstandard dialects. Discusses the serious linguistic and social consequences of the situation in Britain, where most schoolchildren speak nonstandard English. (SK)

The administrator must lead in the acceptance of linguistically different students and initiate changes in teacher attitudes toward such students. (Author/JM)

The paper is a survey of past and current research on attitudes toward Spanish language accented English in home, school, and community settings. The study highlights issues pertaining to Mexican American accented speech and the need for further research on the choice and motivation for an individual's favoring different degrees of accentedness.…

The development of non-native varieties of English in Third World countries is discussed. The impropriety of attitudes of linguistic purism and linguistic intolerance is argued, and data is discussed to present the pragmatics of Indian English. (Author/RM)

Reviews the research on the teaching of English to undereducated adults, suggests various factors that might account for the language-based problems of educationally deficit adults, and draws implications for classroom teachers. (JG)

Studied the relationship between cognitive complexity, racial belief and the influence of a nonstandard dialect in listener evaluative reactions with 135 black and white undergraduates. Results indicate that the individual's racial beliefs were more influential in language assessment than cognitive complexity. (SLD)

Discusses the results of research to determine the success of the efforts currently being made in schools to teach pure Italian to the second generation of Italians in Australia in order to replace Italian Australian, a mixture of Italian dialects, Italian, and English. 33 references. (CFM)

Examines the relation between stage of cognitive development, transfer ability, production ability in Standard English, and school achievement among a sample of high school students in rural Hawaii. There was a strong relation between transfer ability and school achievement. (PCB)

Investigates the effects of Pidgin English used for communication outside the classroom on Nigerian students' reading and writing. Concludes that knowledge of Pidgin English favorably affected Standard English reading comprehension but did not help writing. Notes that Pidgin-speaking students have solid linguistic competencies on which to build.…