Over the last 10 years, there has been considerable expansion of the Navajo Language Program at Navajo Community College (NCC). The guiding principle for this development has been that the seminal work be done by Navajos, in Navajo, for a Navajo audience, and for Navajo purposes. Navajos who speak Navajo have a richness of resource and an access…

This final research monograph describes intervention research to improve thinking skills in high ability, high school students attending an urban magnet school for primarily low-income ethnic minority students who come from families that have historically experienced social inequality and various forms of discrimination in the United States. The…

A study examined how government administrators in New Zealand construct their professional identities and power relationships, and how this identity is reflected in patterns of discourse and strategies of interaction. Three levels of discourse analysis (speech functions; discourse strategies; and linguistic forms) and their components and…

This paper discusses the need for systematic school-wide support of the use of indigenous languages among those who learn them at home and of approrpriate instruction in the same languages for those who do not. The school's role in keeping indigenous languages alive must go beyond native language instruction to encompass dissemination of…

This book poses fundamental questions about the role of teachers in society. Chapter 1, "Contentious Behaviors," presents four hypothetical cases of teacher behavior (an affair, bare facts, world views in collision, and crossing boundaries). It also discusses the case of trouble, the normative base, teacher role, social drama, a national…

Puerto Ricans in the United States are often assumed to be bilingual, and most are to some degree. Among Puerto Ricans, frequent returns home are common, allowing for immersion in both cultures and communication in both Spanish and English. Despite availability of bilingual education, programs are too short for participants to attain even a…

The idea that vowel nuclei in many northern European languages can be divided into peripheral and non-peripheral categories is discussed. Peripheral vowels are those located at the edge of the vowel envelope, and non-peripheral nuclei are those located on the inside. This assertion has not received as much scrutiny as it should. There are at least…

This collection of papers reports research on the effects of bilingual learning on the ability to speak two languages and the ability to acquire full literacy in both. There are 12 chapters in 4 parts. Part 1, "Background," includes (1) "Assessing the Effects of Bilingualism: A Background" (D. Kimbrough Oller and Barbara Zurer…

This paper seeks to understand the role of culturally-specific styles of discourse in the classroom. The paper uses and expands upon three categories of classroom language use (control, curriculum, and critique) to present data on how a Puerto Rican American teacher uses repetition and discourse styles that have African and African American…

The educational welfare of children of native and minority groups in continental United States and its outlying parts involves instructional procedures which in recent years are becoming more and more recognized as constituting specialized problems in education. Bilingualism is generally recognized as offering serious instructional difficulties…

Identifies key components of U.S. Language immersion programs and offers a description of existing partial and full immersion schools. The survey parallels information-gathering efforts in Canada and Europe by providing details and summaries of demographic information, teachers, materials, target language proficiency and use, program structure and…

Describes the O'odham language and oral tradition of the Tohono O'odham Indians of southern Arizona, relating it to the development of O'odham children's English literacy. Oral tradition and school literacy constitute opposite ends of a literacy continuum, in which English literacy is often isolated from and in conflict with O'odham literacy. (10…

Observed six children from two primary grade classrooms in different instructional settings: teacher-directed/large group; teacher- and child-directed/large and small group; and child-directed. Children's choice was related to high levels of cognitive functioning, language production, cooperative behavior, and generative use of materials. (MM)

In a contrastive rhetoric study of nonnative English speakers, 768 essays written in English by native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, and English were examined using the Writer's Workbench program to determine whether distinctive, quantifiable differences in the use of 4 cohesion devices existed among the 4 language backgrounds. (Author/LB)

Urges social studies teachers to help students understand and identify sociocentric, national bias in the news media. Illustrates how the media fosters "us versus them" thinking and how word choice often reflects bias. Outlines activities to help students recognize bias. Provides weak and strong examples of students' analyses of bias in news…