Examines the efforts of indigenous communities in the United States to maintain and revitalize their languages by restoring traditional learning environments and creating new ones. Describes immersion programs in Hawaiian and Navajo, bilingual education programs, master-apprentice programs, development of a Hualapai writing system and resources,…

Six Aboriginal languages have been designated as official languages of the Northwest Territories (Canada) along with English and French. However, more than legislation is needed to support efforts to reclaim Aboriginal languages and culture. Both missionary schools and federally administered public schools (1940s-60s) disrupted the transmission of…

The core of the case for bilingual education is that the principles underlying successful bilingual education emphasize the same factors that underlie successful language acquisition in general: understanding messages and obtaining comprehensible input; using background knowledge; and the development of literacy. The importance of the first…

Much information of interest to bilingual education policymakers has emerged from basic research on language learning, bilingualism, and cognition. Among the conclusions drawn from it are the following: (1) bilingual education is superior to submersion education in many contexts;(2) one major bilingual education goal should be development of the…

As part of the Spanish government's attempt to provide cultural and linguistic education for the sizable Spanish population in France, it organized the design of instructional materials especially suited to the 64,614 children of Spanish migrant workers living in rural and urban France. The materials were intended for use by primary and lower…

Discusses language policy in the multilingual settings of Australia and the Philippines. Examines language policies, language curricula, government initiatives, language attitudes, and cultural maintenance in Australia. Studies language policies, national language development attempts, bilingual policies, viability of minority languages,…

There are at least 6,000--7,000 languages spoken in the world today, with over half of them endangered. And 61 percent of the endangered languages are within the Asia and Pacific Region. The publication is a report derived from the Regional (Asia and Pacific Region) Workshop on Mother Tongue/Bilingual Literacy Programs for Ethnic Minorities, held…

This paper is an overview of topics covered at two sessions of the Fourth Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium, from the perspective of a native speaker of an indigenous language and member of a university academic community. The first section describes a Master's thesis on White Mountain Apache (WMA) language shift. Interviews with…

Overviews issues affecting Native American and bilingual education including the unique cultural, linguistic, and educational needs of different Native American groups. Suggests that Native American communities need to gain control of their children's education to ensure the integral use of American Indian languages in tribal schools. Addresses…

Examines the myths surrounding the introduction of native language instruction in American Indian communities. Despite the concerns of many parents, such instruction does not "hold back" students, and in fact empowers them to succeed in school. Parent-community involvement is essential for dispelling myths and for reinforcement of the…

Describes how indigenous students in a remote Mexican village learned ways to document their culture and history; how teachers in this same village learned to teach reading and writing in Ayuuk, their native language; and what a Foxfire teacher learned as an instructor in the teacher workshop. Includes the Foxfire "core practices" in…

Among 187 Arizona Mexican-American children with limited proficiency in both Spanish and English, participation in a maintenance bilingual education program during grades K-2 produced significant gains in oral language acquisition for both languages. Students with the lowest proficiency scores in kindergarten showed the greatest gains. (SV)

Advocates change in the way American Indian languages are taught in schools and by tribal elders, specifically that they should be taught orally in the classroom. Asserts that American Indian languages must be taught in the context of everyday conversation, not as isolated words, and that new words should also be invented in response to the…

In this article, the authors explore the personal, familial, and academic stakes of Native language loss for youth, drawing on narrative data from the Native Language Shift and Retention Project, a five year (2001-06), federally funded study of the nature and impacts of Native language shift and retention on American Indian students' language…

This edited volume provides an overview of issues surrounding language loss from sociological, economic, and linguistic perspectives. Four parts cover general issues in language loss; language-community responses, including native language instruction in school, community, and home; the value of language diversity and what is lost when a language…