The Alaska State Operated School System (ASOSS) has now completed its second full year of experimental bilingual education. In an area where Yupik Eskimo is often the first and only language spoken by the native citizens, a decision was made to experiment with teaching the early primary grades in the Native language, introducing English as a…

The Bethel Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, has now completed its 3rd year of experimental bilingual education. Beginning in 1970 with 3 pilot schools and adding 4 schools the following year, 3 grade levels in 17 Kuskokwim River village classrooms have been reached by the Primary Eskimo Program. To determine the validity of this approach, an…

The purposes of this paper are to: (1) describe the general linguistic situation in Alaska, (2) describe the bilingual education situation, and (3) discuss the effectiveness of the bilingual education programs and give an idea of the potential of bilingual education as a social force in Alaska. Much of the information is summarized in a number of…