ERIC Number: ED224346
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1982-Aug
Pages: 42
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Acquisition of Biliteracy: A Comparative Ethnography of Four Minority Ethnolinguistic Schools in New York City. Final Report (Second/Final Part).
Fishman, Joshua A.
Factors that might influence the acquisition of biliteracy were studied in four schools in the Greater New York Metropolitan Area (an Armenian-English school, a Greek- English school, a Hebrew-English school, and a French- English school). This report is the final part of a two- part report and deals with the tabulation and analysis of ethnographic observations. The effect of studying two different scripts was a major concern of the research, which employed a school ethnography approach (Green and Wallat, 1981). Observational data for four grades in the four schools were coded for additional analysis. Findings include the following: (1) writing system differences were reduced by emphasizing the printing system (whether by reading or writing print), particularly in the earliest grades; (2) reading received the most attention, followed by writing, and speaking; (3) little evidence was found of either out-of-school participation in literacy acquisition or of topical emphasis on matters pertaining to home or community; (4) out-of-school influences on literacy acquisition, though small, occurred primarily for the ethnic language; (5) little awareness or concern was found for nonschool dialect, interlanguage contrasts, or interlanguage variation; (6) for instruction in French and Hebrew, teacher-made materials were more commonly employed than were basal readers, whereas the opposite was true for English instruction; (7) the Greek school stressed choral reading; (8) the French school used individual reading more than did the other schools; and (9) the Hebrew school stressed analytic decoding in both languages more than synthetic zones. (SW)
Descriptors: Armenian, Bilingual Education, Bilingual Schools, Bilingualism, Classroom Observation Techniques, Elementary Secondary Education, English, Ethnic Groups, Ethnography, French, Greek, Hebrew, Language Acquisition, Language Skills, Oral Language, Orthographic Symbols, Private Schools, Reading Skills, Religious Cultural Groups, Sociolinguistics, Speech Skills, Teaching Methods, Writing Skills, Written Language
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Yeshiva Univ., New York, NY. Ferkauf Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Identifiers - Location: New York (New York)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A