This manual provides a basic understanding of cultural differences that teachers are likely to encounter among exceptional children in their classrooms. The manual aims to create an atmosphere where children respect individual differences in themselves and in others. Several cultures are introduced, including Arabic Lebanese, Hispanic, Native…

Written for teachers to use with migrant children in elementary grades and to highlight the many Americas, three magazines provide historical and cultural background information on Canada, the United States, and Mexico and feature biographies of Black and Hispanic leaders. Each edition has a table of contents indicating the language--Spanish…

This study investigated the effects of interference of a native dialect in the acquisition of a second dialect. Four groups of subjects were used: Five white preschool children from an intergrated nursery school, five Black preschool children from a Head Start program, five white, middle-class 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds, and five Black 16-, 17-,…

The teaching of edited American English in a freshman composition course to remedial students and to students of English as a second language (ESL) is discussed. Edited American English (EAE) can be defined as the kind of standard written English that typically appears in textbooks, newspapers, and some periodicals. Remedial and ESL students need…

This paper draws from a number of sources, from Muhammad Ali to TV commercials, to demonstrate the quite different conceptions that black and white Americans have of the meaning of boasting and bragging. For blacks, boasting and bragging are two distinct ways of speaking and communication. Boasting is a joking, playful verbal bahavior, not to be…

This book has been written to help improve the composition skills of students of English as a second language or second dialect. It has been planned for students at the advanced secondary, college, and university levels who have had some previous training in English vocabulary and grammar; it is particularly suited for a one-semester course for…

As a result of a resolution of the Association of Christian School Administrators this paper was produced on minorities in the United States and Canada. The groups considered here are not only the racial groups, but the various religious sects in both countries. Major emphasis, in terms of numbers of resources discussed or listed, is on the…

This paper discusses the controversy over nonstandard dialects as opposed to the standard language in the teaching of English and makes a case for maintaining a commitment to Standard English. The primary function of standard English is to provide a means by which members of English-speaking society can communicate with each other. It is…

This book is designed for low-intermediate to advanced students of English as a second language. It provides a look at the world that awaits the foreign student who is to be suddenly immersed in an English-speaking society. The format involves a number of letters written by an American university student to a foreign student planning a trip to the…

This report evaluates the third year of a Specialized Language Activities program conducted for students who demonstrated poor usage and command of English. The activities are designed to motivate the students to use oral language. The report provides a detailed description of the activities and how they are conducted. It provides statistical data…

The aim of this study is to assess the degree to which sentence imitations of Negro and Mexican-American children (grades K-2) could be used as a basis for language evaluation. Tapes of 10 Negro and 10 Mexican-American children who had responded to a set of commercially available test materials were evaluated by panels of experts. Evaluations for…

The child in a bilingual or bidialectal situation must increase his skills so that he may function successfully in a wider variety of situations and know how and when to use both language codes. The curriculum described here, used in Head Start classes, is a carefully programmed, very detailed presentation of syntactic patterns that appear with…

Relating the history of the Dakota Indians from their origins to the present time, this document also examines the effects of acculturation on these Sioux people. Beginning with the Paleo-Indians of North America, it details the structure of the Dakota culture and attempts to acculturate the Indians into white society. Historical and current…

There has been disagreement among linguists and psychologists concerning the age at which children develop social perceptions of others on the basis of difference in speech. The purpose of the present study was to determine in what ways eight- and nine-year-old children from different socioeconomic backgrounds might react to dialect differences.…

A study examined how the family structure has changed over time in contemporary realistic children's literature for middle readers. There is an ongoing debate in this country about what defines a family and whether it is in transformation or becoming extinct. Since 1960 there is evidence that the family structure has changed. The books selected in…