Bilingual education in the United States has been directed by various language education policies to which there are three dimensions: (1) the language or dialect the child speaks on entering school; (2) the type of language policy in the school, which may be monolingual or one of three types of bilingual policies; (3) the divisions of language…

English language instruction in schools for American Indians has progressed from the era when there was an effort to eliminate tribal languages and replace them with English. From 1932 until recently tribal languages were encouraged, but the emphasis was on English. During the past four years, bilingual education has emerged. There has been…

In the past 25 years, American Indian education has undergone tremendous changes in both content (curriculum and pedagogy) and context (institutional framework). Centered on the issue of control, changes at both levels have resulted from a dynamic interplay between federal language policy and local initiatives. The federal Bilingual Education Act…

It is the task of educational linguistics to describe and analyze language education in all aspects. With respect to the Navajo Reading Study, it is within the realm of educational linguistics to develop and make available information that will permit the Navaho people, working through their own institutions, to make informed decisions about…

Reviews research on maintaining and revitalizing American Indian languages, focusing on the interrelationship of language and culture; Fishman's theoretical paradigm for reversing language shift; national and tribal language policies; and examples of native language instruction at the early childhood, elementary, secondary, and tribal college…

Proceedings of a Navajo Bilingual Education Conference held April 26 and 27, 1985, are summarized in this report which focuses on the implementation of Navajo language and cultural education at the Dzlith Na O Dith Hle Community School (DCS). The paper begins by stating that the conference was intended to assist educators in understanding and…

This curriculum bulletin contains articles relevant to problems in bilingual education for American Indians. The first section includes articles presenting a broad view of past and present activities in bilingual education for American Indians and Eskimos. The history of language instruction in American Indian schools and of bilingual education in…

On November 14, 1984, the Navajo Tribal Council approved a new set of educational policies (the "Mission Statement") intended to improve the quality of education for all Navajos, specifically some 56,810 students in 223 schools on or near the Navajo reservation. The Mission Statement asserts that the Navajo Tribe, as a sovereign nation,…

The relationship between teaching English to speakers of other languages and bilingual education is explored through three dimensions in language education: participants, channels, and codes. Language barriers to education can be found in each of these. As student participants become more numerous and more linguistically diverse, the educational…

This overview of bilingual education concerns definitions, rationale, program and student characteristics, background in the United States, data on bilingual programs, the sociocultural context, the politics of bilingual education, the development of specific bilingual programs, and studies and implications for the foreign language profession.…