The author reports on a study of the acquisition of English as a second language by Filipino immigrant children in Hawaii, and recommends a comparative study of this kind across four or more Asian linguistic backgrounds and a comparison of the Hawaiian data with data from children of Hispanic backgrounds on the Mainland. The report concludes that…

This paper examines the language dominance and oral bilingual proficiency of Tarahumara-Spanish speaking students from Chihuahua, Mexico, within the framework of Cummins' model of bilingual proficiency development. Cummins' model distinguishes between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency…

This paper explores a range of attitudes about bilingual/bicultural learners in a secondary school context. It presents findings of a qualitative case study of the role of the classroom context in constraining or enabling English Language Learners' (ELLs') academic success. Interviews were conducted with mainstream teachers in English, Social…

Many mainstreamed students with limited English proficiency continue to face the difficulty of learning English as a second language (ESL) while studying mathematics and other content areas framed in the language of native speakers. The difficulty these students often encounter in mathematics classes and their poor performance on subsequent…

Four aspects of the interactive reading process, the parallel compensatory behaviors of bilingual students, and an instructional approach that reflects the needs of these students are described. Focus is on a reading strategies program for Native American students whose cultural environments vary greatly from the cultural environment of the public…

Sign Talk Development Project (STDP) is a four-pronged project that grows out of needs identified through the program of Sign Talk Children's Centre (STCC). STCC is a bilingual/bicultural day care for children of deaf parents in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The center offers programming in two languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and English; and in two…

This paper deals with the history and practices of the language assessment policy being used by the state of Illinois' transitional bilingual education programs serving over 42,000 students. The first section of the paper treats the history of bilingual program evaluation efforts. It divides the discussion into three periods, prior to 1976, from…

This paper describes a method for determining whether the language variations of Spanish-English bilingual speakers are anomalous, idiosyncratic, or truly dialectical, and reports the testing of that method. Elements of the method include presenting sentences that have grammatical/syntactic language variations, having subjects perform operational…

Adolescent Portuguese-English bilingual students participated in a study that examined the relationship between reading rate and reading comprehension. The 31 subjects were placed in one of three groups: (1) normal readers, reading at grade level as indicated by IQ test scores; (2) slow readers, reading at least two years below expected grade…

Everyone in the United States has a cultural heritage which varies from the present mainstream culture of this country and yet, the majority of Americans have lost ties with their cultrual background. This has occurred because of both the melting pot theory and the educational system that has developed under a philosophy. There has been a serious…

This paper briefly examines the viability and potential of a non-remedial college freshman composition course designed for those Mexican-American students who are capable of entering and successfully completing the regular freshman English class. The rhetorical concepts and skills of composition normally taught in Freshman English can more easily…

Twenty-three German-English bilingual boys and girls, ranging from grades three to six in Saskatchewan's schools, were used in this study which sought to investigate their reading behavior when reading English passages. The Individual Reading Inventory, administered in both languages, indicated that comprehension after oral and silent reading in…

An ethnographic study analyzed and compared children's participation in book reading activities with their participation in other types of literacy activities. Subjects, 15 bilingual children who were enrolled in a multilingual, multicultural preschool program where English was the common language, were encouraged to maintain their native…

In order to better evaluate bilingualism in deaf children, this study examined whether observers (N=37) from different backgrounds would agree on deaf children's use of either American Sign Language (ASL) or English signing. Observers represented a range of background experience in a variety of schools and programs; 6 were deaf; 31 were hearing;…

The status of English as learned and used by Chinese students in South Africa was investigated to provide perspective on the language policy. Language planners in South Africa require that all secondary school students be taught and tested through the medium of either English or Afrikaans, regardless of their mother tongue. The students are…