This is both a report on the numbers of native speakers of Apachean languages and a statement of the need for sociolinguistic studies of these languages. (CK)

Current trends in American Indian bilingual education are discussed. An overview of American Indian bilingual programs is presented. The model utilized shows the range of variation in situation, programs and goals. (HP)

Two centers of diffusion of the English language are (1) schools on the Navajo Reservation and (2) off-Reservation towns; these diffusion centers were studied to examine factors involved in language shift, especially in terms of internal (on-Reservation) and external (off-Reservation) contacts with English. Teachers in schools with Navajo pupils…

Bilingual education programs have been established in such Native American languages as Aleut, Yupik, Tlingit, Haida, Athabaskan, Cherokee, Lakota, Navajo, Papago, Pomo, Passamaquoddy, Seminole, Tewa, and Zuni. These programs include the: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Northern Cheyenne Bilingual Education Program, Lakota Bilingual Education…

The purpose of this study was to determine 6-year-old Navajo children's relative proficiency in Navaho and English upon entering school. A first study on this topic was done in 1969. In the present study, data were obtained for 3,653 of the 4,645 children who were 6 years old in 1970. This study used a teacher questionnaire which was checked for…

The amount of English spoken by six-year-old Navaho children as they enter first grade is increasing and will probably continue to increase. Contacts outside the reservation contribute to this increase as do the almost completely monolingual (English) schools. Location of residence is also a factor. Linguistic borrowing of English words is another…

This article presents an outline of how some linguistic studies have formed the basis for the start of an experimental program in training bilingual Navajo elementary school teachers. (RC)

This paper notes the tendency among non-literate peoples such as the American Indians to lose their native language as the demands of modern technology increasingly push them towards literacy in a language which is not their own, and argues that literacy in the vernacular language may present such acculturation and language loss from going hand in…

English and Navajo language materials are described in this annotated bibliography of reading materials which is part of the Navajo Reading Study funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The English language materials were developed to teach Navajo children about their own culture and could be used to form the base for a curriculum in English for…

Successful bilingual programs depend on some understanding of the language situation involved, the possible strategies of bilingual education, the effects of these strategies, the assessment of community desires, the best ways to find and train teachers, the method of evaluating curriculum, the effect of learning styles, and the possibilities of…

In keeping with the objective of the Navajo Reading Study, to investigate the feasibility and effect of teaching Navajo children to read their own language first, it was decided that more needs to be known about Navajo children and the language they know. Thus, between October 1969 and June 1970, 22 adult Navajo interviewers recorded free…

The Navajo Reading Study has been prepared for a volume describing literacy projects in the indigenous languages of the Americas. In 1969-70, 2 surveys were made to determine the present language situation of 6-year-old Navajo children. For each survey, a simple questionnaire was sent to all teachers with Navajo 6-year-olds in their classes.…

As part of a study of the feasibility and effect of teaching Navajo children to read their own language first, a word count collected by 22 Navajo adults interviewing over 200 Navajo 6-year-olds was undertaken. This report discusses the word count and the interview texts in terms of (1) number of sentences, (2) number of words, (3) number of…

English and Navajo language materials are described in this bibliography of reading materials primarily for elementary school students. The English language materials were developed to teach Navajo children about their own culture and could be used to form the base for a curriculum in English for Navajo students. The Navajo language materials were…

The model attempts to map all relevant factors onto a single integrated structure and to suggest some of the interaction lines. Based on a hexagonal figure, each side represents a set of factors which may have a bearing on, or be affected by, the bilingual program's operation in a particular situation--psychological, sociological, economic,…