The curricular question of educational purposes is generally answered by Language Arts Specialists in terms of the traditional language skills. Two ideas to better answer this question are proposed: Professor William E. Bull's model of the communication process and his adaptation of the mathematical Theory of Sets to language study. Bull's model of communication is described as including four phases: precoding, encoding, transmission and decoding. The importance of Set Theory in language study is explained. The language skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing are identified in terms of the phases in the proposed communication model and Set Theory. The precoding phase of the model is found to have no curricular equivalent in any skill. The same is true for Set Theory. Specific goals or educational purposes for the language arts curriculum in bilingual programs and instructional objectives derived from Bull's model and Set Theory are provided. (Author/KM)