Drawing on observations and audio-recordings of classroom language use in two postcolonial societies, the Republic of Botswana in Africa and the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam in south-east Asia, this study seeks to explore how teachers and pupils face the challenge of accomplishing teaching and learning using a language which is not their own. In…

Links between language and identity are so strong that attempts to correct nonstandard speech are likely to be interpreted by West Indian children as criticism or rejection. A far more constructive approach would be to acknowledge and accept Creole in the classroom. (Author)

The role of teacher-talk in Botswana primary schools is discussed in view of evidence that pupils' contributions are outweighed by those of their teachers. The development of a genuinely bilingual model of education is advocated in which both teachers and pupils make full use of their linguistic resources. (17 references) (Author/LB)

Part of a larger study that focuses on the interactional practices in a number of primary classrooms in several different sociolinguistic areas of Brunei Darussalam, this study looks at how teachers and learners in two classrooms accomplish lessons through the use of two languages--Malay and English--in order to unpack the meaning of the written…

This ERIC Digest delineates problems posed by the increasing number of language-minority children in schools and offers suggestions for teaching children from different cultures. It is maintained that a group's language reflects its culture, and the uses to which that language is put are culturally determined. When children and adults do not share…

This study was conducted to identify problems teachers face in using English as the language of instruction in the early grades of Zambian primary school, and to investigate the difficulties young pupils meet because of learning through English rather than through their mother tongue. The first chapter sets forth the historical background of the…

The report discusses the first- and second-language development, oral and written, of native English-speakers and native Spanish-speakers in the two-way immersion (TWI) program at Key Elementary School (Arlington, Virginia). Data were drawn from classroom observation from 1994-96, student performance measures, and student work samples. Three…

This paper reports on an investigation into the communication activities in a multicultural elementary school classroom in England. In the first exercise, the whole class worked in groups of three, each group led by a bilingual child, to devise a doctor-patient dialogue in that child's foreign language. When the dialogue was presented to the…

A study investigated the relationship between the degree to which students in an elementary foreign language immersion program use appropriate grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary, and how many minutes per week teachers use direct instruction to teach these skills. Elementary foreign language teachers (n=53) were surveyed to (1) investigate…

When non-native English-speaking elementary school students, exposed to English in the school environment only, were given high-interest, well-illustrated reading materials in English, measures of reading comprehension, English structures, word recognition, oral sentence repetition, and composition writing indicated that second-language…

A three-year research project investigated the effects of instructional practices and patterns of language use in bilingual and English-only classrooms on general academic development and the development of English language skills by limited-English-proficient students, especially those skills needed to participate fully in the society's schools.…

Spatial and temporal factors in the bilingual classroom that can be manipulated to maximize the bilingualism of Spanish-speaking elementary school children (that is, to minimize their lexical code switching) are presented in terms of models. The advantages and disadvantages of the dual language teaching model are compared to those of two…