In view of the fact that the teaching of Standard English has high educational priority in American schools, and that its use as the medium of instruction makes it a vital skill for nonstandard speakers, the present paper reports on an investigation of the Standard English performance of young children from minority groups in which Standard English is not a primary language. The investigation technique described is that of elicited imitation, whereby the child is simply asked to repeat sentences containing grammatical features observed to show variation. Previous use of this technique and its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The test itself appears in two forms, each one containing 15 sentences taken from recordings of natural speech. It is administered individually to children whose mean age is 5.5 years, by an adult tester, and recorded. Native speakers of English should perform better on the test, and the scores should improve with age, that is, further exposure to Standard English. The results confirm these predictions, thus demonstrating the validity of the test. Specific results are given for tests given to Mexican-American and Pima children, and to Hawaiian-Creole speaking children, the results from the latter being the most detailed. (CLK)