The occurrence of the two allomorphs of the indefinite article in standard English ("a" before nouns or noun clauses beginning with consonant sounds and "an" before those beginning with vowel sounds) is a concept similar to those studied in the general concept formation paradigm. The acquisition of this grammatical concept was examined using 80…

This report is designed to aid the college instructor preparing prospective English teachers in the area of dialect studies. It includes a general description of the nature of dialect, teaching suggestions, and an extensive annotated bibliography. The articles which make up the report are as follows: "Historical, Regional and Social…

These materials, a self-instructional workbook, a teacher's manual and accompanying tapes, are designed for students grades 7 through 12 who are speakers of the dialect sometimes called "Black Nonstandard." The terms "standard" and "nonstandard" are avoided, however, "informal" being used for the child's own dialect and "formal" for the English…

The assessments of the work of the curriculum study centers and the insights of the Dartmouth Seminar in the past decade have given rise to six major directions in the teaching of English: (1) increased relevance and vitality in literature study through attention to student response to literature and elimination of censorship and moral bias, (2)…

This variable rule analysis of the indefinite article "an" was done by means of a computer program developed by H. Cedergren and D. Sankoff of Montreal. The data was collected from 45-minute interviews with three different groups of college students essentially alike in age: (1) 13 whites from Louisiana, (2) 12 blacks from southwestern Ohio, and…

This paper presents ideas concerning speech communication education for black students and discusses some of the difficulties that exist. Black Americans have not shared in the material wealth in America because blacks are systematically excluded as trespassers in the white world on the basis of race, not speech. The assumption that the first step…

Reports on a project designed (1) to explore the utility of the University of Hawaii Preschool Language Curriculum in a broad field-testing situation with teachers of varying skill and background; (2) to determine whether or not there is loss of effectiveness when the amount of supervision and consultation has been reduced from that provided in…

A current vocabulary of argot terms and meanings was collected from a Black male control group in the South Central Los Angeles ghetto. This lexicon was used to elicit and compare responses from 5 male groups of youths between 15 and 20 years old. Two of the groups consisted of lower class blacks separated geographically. The other groups were…

Research on language attitudes and performances of prospective teachers shows the need for special training to prepare teachers to work with "linguistically different" students. An attempt was made to develop, and test the effectiveness of, such training. Twenty-six prospective teachers conducted an Informal Reading Inventory on the reading of a…

Although some educators have advocated eradication of Black American English and other non-standard American English dialects in formal school training, it is recognized that many dialects are effectively used to a great degree by many Americans. Black American English, like other dialects, is a legitimate linguistic system that has logic,…

Investigates the writing processes of nonstandard dialect, basic writers through the case study of an eleventh grade minority student. Offers teaching methods which utilize the strengths and address the underlying problems of nonstandard dialect students. (MM)

The focus group method has rapidly gained credibility among researchers in many fields, including public health researchers. The increased use of focus groups by public health researchers has underscored the demonstrable need for the capacity to apply this method of research among populations with limited abilities in or cultural resistance to…

This case study describes a criterion-referenced method of assessing the speech and language of a young child who speaks an uncommon or unfamiliar English dialect. The method, Parent Child Comparative Analysis, involves administering an identical test battery to parent and child and interpreting the child's performance in relation to the parent's.…

Three chapters discuss language usage in the classroom: "Language in the Classroom" (Jack Thomson); "Directions for Research into Classroom Communication" (Douglas Barnes); and "Teachers' Attitudes to Usage" (Ken Watson). The first article discusses how students view their classroom, with actual examples from a newspaper survey. Various teaching…

As studies indicate that dialect usage is not a barrier to reading, teachers can create an effective reading program for black students not by giving instruction in standard English, but by changing their own attitude toward black dialect. Showing that dialect users reencode standard English into their own language patterns when reading orally, Y.…