Discusses the implications of the new English National Curriculum in an elementary school in which more than 90% of the children are of Bangladeshi origin and Sylheti speaking. The unique nature of the student body will be the basis for planning the new curriculum as the principal intends to use the new flexibility to increase students' English…

To discover the extent to which academic register develops in language-minority children, it is important to describe the academic register of the minority language and then to develop instruments to measure its development. This article looks at the means that were developed to accomplish these two tasks of description and instrument development…

Research shows that schools must initiate and promote limited-English-speaking parent participation. The Hispanic Policy Development Project, which studied 42 parent involvement programs, documented the importance of teacher and administrator training, bilingual staff, translated written communications, parent advisory committees, parent-teacher…

Four bilingual educators of African ancestry discuss issues that affect them as teachers and that affect their students as ethnolinguistic minorities. The paper discusses views of culture and language; teachers' identity construction; students' identity construction; and a twofold educational response to students' academic and social needs as…

Using data from the National Adult Literacy Survey, explores the English fluency and literacy of U.S. adults whose native language is not English, their fluency and literacy in their native language, and their employment patterns and earnings. Data show that only nonnative English speakers with low levels of formal education were truly…

Stresses the importance of exposing all students (including second language and underprivileged students) to classic texts. They must be taught how stories work and how to read them. This includes making connections beyond the story, encouraging student-run discussions and projects, scaffolding for dictation and syntax, teaching about reading…

Gives a brief overview of Irish language radio in Ireland and points out a few difficulties with a roundtable discussion on Irish carried out by scholars in the field of minority language broadcasting. (Author/VWL)

This study focuses on an urban school district in Southern California with a large Cambodian-American student population. Ten Cambodian-American former students of the district were interviewed to examine the nature of their educational experience in terms of federal, state and district policies for language minority students. All entered school…

In some institutions offering certification for bilingual education and ESL teachers, the corresponding mainstream programs do little to ready their students to work effectively with language minority children. Yet today's mainstream classrooms are linguistically and culturally diverse, and all teachers must appreciate the role of language and…

This article examines patterns of national, cultural, and linguistic identification among Chilean-Swedish transmigrant adolescents in and around Stockholm, Sweden. Drawing from ethnographic interviews and observations, analysis focuses on adolescents' (a) views on ethnic and national identity; (b) general perceptions of Chileans and Swedes; and…

This qualitative study, framed by a language socialisation perspective, explores parental language attitudes of families living in Paraguay, where Spanish and the indigenous language of Guarani coexist in what many sociolinguistics have labelled a diglossic society. During home visits, 27 parents or primary caregivers participated in individual…

This article contains the address given by His Excellency John Ralston Saul in St. Petersburg, Russia, September 29, 2003, when he was presented with an Honorary Degree during a state visit. In this address, Saul discusses the need to embrace complexity, the strength that is gained from diversity, and the need to respect and protect minority…

While advocacy of minority language rights (MLR) has become well established in sociolinguistics, language policy and planning and the wider human rights literature, it has also come under increased criticism in recent times for a number of key limitations. In this paper, I address directly three current key criticisms of the MLR movement. The…

Language-minority students are the fastest-growing population in U.S. public schools. During the 1990s, their numbers rose from 8 million to 15 million. These include new immigrant students as well as students from Native American and indigenous backgrounds. Research shows that the distribution of "extremely bright," "average" and "cognitively…

The first year college experience is anxiety producing, and for college students who represent traditionally underserved populations, particularly ethnic and linguistic minorities, the anxiety can be even more pronounced. Add to the mix a requirement for students to complete at least one course in mathematics during the first semester and the…