A study assessed the awareness of English-as-a-Foreign- Language (EFL) learners concerning a set of English lexical items referring to racial or ethnic heritage, and examined how this awareness might predict the learner's linguistic behavior. Subjects were 40 university students of varying linguistic background enrolled in beginning and advanced EFL classes, who completed a questionnaire concerning (1) basic familiarity with each term, (2) which terms were part of the student's active lexical repertoire, and (3) degree of awareness of the sociocultural, affective meaning of the terms. In general, subjects reported familiarity with most terms, but some reported lack of familiarity with a term and later provided judgments about its relative negativeness. In some cases, students were unaware that some labels are highly emotionally loaded. It is recommended that EFL students be explicitly taught all or some of the terms, with two qualifications: regional differences in usage may exist, and distinctions must be made between in-group and outsider use. Contains five references. (MSE)