This paper discusses the dialects of the Chinese people who have settled in various countries of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Laos, North and South Vietnam, and the Khmer Republic. Data are first given regarding the area in general. The data are then broken down according to individual…

Understanding the nature of American dialects and the basic issues involved in teaching a standard English to speakers of nonstandard dialects is the subject of the inservice teacher education learning package described here. Inservice topics covered are broad phonetic transcriptions of speech and analyzing nonstandard features occurring in…

The term "village English" has been used by a number of people to label the English used by Alaskan natives. The term appears in discussions of educational problems and often the phenomenon is cited as a significant reason for the lower than expected achievement of Alaskan school children. It is suggested that statements about…

THIS LANGUAGE UNIT ON USAGE FOR 12TH-GRADE STUDENTS IS DIVIDED INTO SIX SECTIONS--"INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDENTS,""USAGE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS,""VARIATIONS WITHIN STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH,""BASES FOR JUDGMENTS ABOUT USAGE," AND "CHARACTERISTICS OF A MATURE ATTITUDE TOWARD USAGE." FOUR…

The aim of this study was to describe the varieties of English used in two American Indian communities and to examine the effect of language diversity on the acquisition of certain educational skills. The field work was carried out in two Puebloan communities in New Mexico, San Juan and Laguna. The description of selected linguistic structures and…

A curriculum guide was prepared for the teaching of standard oral English in the Los Angeles junior high schools. This guide focuses particularly on the teaching of standard English to Negro students using a nonstandard dialect. The lessons were designed for use with accompanying tapes and filmstrips. (See also UD 007703 for parallel program to…

Even in culturally homogeneous settings, language has an important role in the social interaction of adolescents. This study investigated the importance of values concerning dialect and language variation in a group of 62 ninth-grade students. Subjects, 23 black, 21 white, and 18 native Spanish-speaking individuals, were asked to listen to a tape…

This paper expresses concern that teachers do not agree on when, where, and how to deal with the non-standard English of blacks and other minorities. Sections of the paper discuss a definition of Black English, some forms and patterns of Black English, the language development of black children, the black child and the school, implications for…

This conference report summarizes major speeches, including such topics as "Teaching Effective Writing Skills to Dialectically Different Students" and "New Approaches for Teaching Students Standard English." The four objectives of this landmark conference were as follows: (1) to assist black and other minority students in the acquisition of…

The purpose of this study was to change preservice teachers' attitudes toward black English in a positive way. The students were shown that the deep structure of black English and standard English is the same; it is only the surface structures of the two dialects that exhibit variations. Pre-test data garnered from the control group and the…

The main research hypothesis of this study stated that when the universal characteristics of language evaluation are applied to the written language of the students in four fifth grades of varying racial composition, no significant differences would be reported. Two instruments were used: a composition and a series of six paragraphs modified by a…

This study was based on a modification and extension of Greene's (1969) test wherein children choose structurally-transformed sentences which are synonymous with key sentences, thereby indicating recognition of the transformational relationships involved and internalization of those transformations. A similar test was devised to investigate the…

This paper suggests that new approaches are needed in the study of language standardization. One such approach is the consideration of standardization in terms of processes, i.e., in terms of series of related events, rather than as a group of unrelated discrete happenings. Borrowing is one recurring feature in language standardization, and in…

This experimental program in oral English at the Ector High School in Odessa, Texas is designed primarily to help the minority group, disadvantaged, high school student who is a potential dropout. During the three weeks of orientation, 97 students were introduced to the daily metropolitan newspaper which served as the stimulus material and were…

Most compensatory early childhood programs are based on an assumption of linguistic and cognitive deficits which must be remedied if the Negro child is to succeed in school, but much collected data questions this assumption. The language of many lower class Negro children has been shown to be well-ordered and highly structured, although the…