Social psychologists have suggested that language-based ideologies related to "stereotype threat" (i.e. variations in performance-based on ability perceptions of language groups) may affect students' academic achievement regardless of school language support. However, it is unclear whether efforts to support students' first language…

Article also appeared in "International Journal of the Sociology of Language," n1; research supported by the Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Ford Foundation, and The Language Behavior Secion, Hebrew University. (DD)

This study of the role and use of English in Israel was conducted in 1973. Sources used were census figures, personal interviews, surveys, and personal observations. It is concluded that exposure to English is increasing and that Israelis do not seem opposed to this, as Hebrew retains its prominence. (Author/RM)

That English has become a necessary tool in the modern scientist's intellectual equipment, seems to be unquestionable nowadays. English is most likely chosen as the most convenient medium of international communication when the local academic community decides to communicate with the external world. Most Israeli scholars, including those who…

Examines the question of language revitalization against the background of the use of Hebrew as the language of public life in Israel and of Irish as an official language of Ireland. Notes that the organizing principles of nationalism are complex and disputed. The different linguistic outcomes in these two countries point up the complexity and…

Focuses on language restoration in a situation where people start again to use a language as the language of the home and to speak it to newborn children after a period when these uses were extinct. Specifically considers the conditions accounting for Hebrew language revitalization and compares this situation with efforts to revitalize the Maori…

This newsletter discusses the teaching and role of English around the world. Articles also cover English-language media in a given country, and the opportunity and need for understanding and speaking English in that country. This particular issue contains items on English-language education and use in Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, Jordan, Tunisia,…

One of the main problems Israeli language planning has focused on is the linguistic integration of newcomers and of not-so-recent immigrants whose linguistic adaptation has been slow. The bodies active in this are the Section of Adult Education of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Absorption, and the Jewish Agency for Israel.…

Documents and evaluates Israel's language policy shift from its traditional Hebrew-enforcement policy to the fostering of an immigrant language as a channel of information and culture in the face of a sudden 10% addition to its population due to one-half million Soviet migrants attached to Russian culture. (33 references) (Author/CK)

This is a summary in outline form of the English language teaching situation in Israel. In considering the situation of English in Israel, it is essential to also consider the unique linguistic and cultural situation of the country. The population of Israel comprises people of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and includes native…

This edited volume contains 15 chapters. Part one, "Language Teaching, Language Learning, and Literacy," has three chapters: "The Monolingual Teaching and Bilingual Learning of English" (Henry G. Widdowson); "Literacy: The Extension of Languages Through Other Means" (Ellen Bialystok); "Bilingual Processing…

On the basis of detailed analyses of 10 threatened language-in-society constellations and three formerly endangered but now secure constellations, this book develops a closely argued theory of worldwide efforts on behalf of reversing language shift (RLS). It also applies this same line of reasoning to the problems of maintaining the…

Israel is fertile ground for research in multilingualism. Revitalization of Hebrew resulted in a tendency for ideological and instrumentally-motivated monolingualism to replace earlier multilingual patterns, even in the context of pressure for language shift by Arabic, Russian, Yiddish, and other languages, and Hebrew's competition with English in…