An ethnographic study of language proficiency in the home and school languages of bilingual children was conducted. From a qualitative sociolinguistic perspective, language proficiency, the relation of linguistic performance to community language use and attitudes, and the correlation of the sociolinguistic findings on language repertoire with…

The present paper discusses some linguistic correlates of early bilingualism, correlates which have implications for first cognitions about language. The paper also touches on the question of what linguistic environments are optimal for the very young child to acquire two languages fluently, testing the importance of a one-speaker/one-language…

This pamphlet outlines an attempt to provide an instrument by which the linguistic background of Welsh children can be measured. In a group of Welsh-speaking children there are different degrees of Welshness, and it is essential, for educational purposes, that the degrees of Welsh linguistic background be estimated. The two versions of the Welsh…

This paper attempts to place bilingual schooling in a sociolinguistic context by relating language use in school to language use in the community. The city treated here, Redwood City, California, has a growing Mexican American population and was one of the 23 California cities selected for bilingual schooling through Title VII; programs were…

Ninth-grade Francophone students (N=95) living in a bicultural milieu responded to tests including scales of ethnolinguistic vitality, attitudes, motivation, self-confidence, and second language competence and usage. Analyses indicated that contact with Anglophones and self-confidence with English as a second language were related to motivation,…

Studies are reported which attempt to discover the exact level of second language proficiency reached by students in second language immersion programs, with emphasis on analysis of error. (RM)

A study compared the pragmatic performance, using the Adolescent Pragmatics Screening Scale, between two groups of students (n=14) who had been enrolled in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes for varying lengths of time. Results yielded information about the rate at which Latino bilingual students' English pragmatic skills emerged.…

A study examined the outcomes of early bilingualism for majority-language speakers. English and Japanese proficiency of 48 Japanese high school students attending an English-medium international school in Japan were assessed using standardized tests, writing samples, and oral tasks. Students who had received initial schooling in Japanese developed…

Tests the hypothesis that differences between first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) reading and spelling profiles could be accounted for by lack of proficiency in the L2 or differences in orthographic complexity. Finds that neither of these explanations alone sufficed to explain the development of reading and spelling in the two languages…

Interim results of the American Institutes for Research study on the impact of the ESEA Title VII Spanish/English Bilingual Education Program imply that certain inferences can be made about the program, inferences which are unjustifiable. By providing only statistical averages on a national sample, the report does a serious disservice by failing…

State after state is wrestling with federal legislation's mandate to respond to the needs of students whose native language is not English. Much ambiguity, confusion, and frustration surrounds the issue of bilingual-bicultural education. This paper begins by describing the confusion which often surrounds the English component in a bilingual…

The author states that in those classrooms where the dual-language-model approach is implemented on a daily basis, second language acquisition takes place faster than in those classrooms where adherence to the model is ignored or used sporadically. According to this approach, each model functions independently utilizing teaching techniques common…

The predictive validity of several mathematics and language variables relative to criteria of grade point average and word problem-solving skills for 60 bilingual Hispanic technical students is investigated. Examination of standardized college admission criteria is urged. Revealed is a disparity in academic performance between bilingual and…

A study of the language proficiency assessment practices of 859 school psychologists, when working with bilingual or limited English proficient students, found that 62 percent of school psychologists conducted their own assessments and most often used the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised or the Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody.…

Discusses Krashen's monitor model and input hypothesis of language acquisition, focusing on the implications of this hypothesis among Hispanic bilinguals in an English speaking-teaching-reading-problem-solving environment. The hypothesis maintains that individuals acquire more language only when they are exposed to comprehensible input that is a…