"Reading in Asian Languages" is rich with information about how literacy works in the non-alphabetic writing systems (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) used by hundreds of millions of people and refutes the common Western belief that such systems are hard to learn or to use. The contributors share a comprehensive view of reading as construction…

The strong influence of German on the English language is illustrated, and nearly 100 German loanwords related to food and drink are listed. The terms are described in their cultural, historical, and etymological context. (Author/LB)

Most freshman composition textbooks are inadequate in giving information to students on how to interpret dictionaries: instead of presenting them as aids in exploring word usage, textbooks foster a naive trust in dictionaries as arbiters of all usage questions. Rather than treating words as discrete items to be mastered without knowledge of…

Discussion of French language planning focuses on two different roles: official, cherished language of France and international language subject to outside influence. Three areas of concern are discussed: borrowing from English; lexical variation outside France; and influence of computer science on language, particularly the use of spell-checking…

Acknowledging that to study the development of a language is to study the history and culture of people and that English has been influenced by many geographic, political, economic, social, and linguistic forces, this booklet provides a ready reference for elementary and middle school/junior high school teachers confronted with students' questions…

A study of second language acquisition in two Japanese children, and corresponding examination of research literature, led to this effort to clarify terminology related to cross-linguistic influence in language contact situations. Terms include: bilingualism, code-switching, language mixing, language transfer, and borrowing. Two forms of transfer…

The application of language processing skills between 2 languages with dissimilar morphosyntactic features was investigated with 72 American university students learning Japanese. Results suggest that learners' first- and second-language knowledge both play a significant role and that the linguistic knowledge and coding capability for text…

A context-based framework for teaching the history of Portuguese is presented. It incorporates passages from a medieval Galician-Portuguese work to illustrate diachronic linguistic processes in the evolution of the language. Advantages of the approach, prerequisites, text, and syllabus are described, and a sample analysis is provided. (53…

A study conducted in grades 4 and 5 in French Canadian schools in Atlantic Canada and Ontario investigated differences between students' vernacular and standard spoken French, with regard to learning how to eliminate interference in students' learning of standard usage. The discussion focuses on mistakes caused by borrowings from English,…

Instructional materials are presented that are designed to give educators a comparative view of Haitian Creole, French, and English as well as to provide insight into the linguistic differences between Haitians and other national origin minority groups for better placement in English instruction. The text focuses on grammatical, lexical,…

This is one of a series of handbooks designed to assist classroom teachers, bilingual-bicultural education and special education program staff, counselors, and school administrators in instructional services for students from native Alaskan language groups. The unique sociocultural and linguistic characteristics of Athabaskan language speakers as…

Designed as a teacher's guide to accompany the revised edition of the classroom text "English Words from Latin and Greek Elements," this manual contains the following material that is not in the textbook: (1) answers to all exercises in the text; (2) the Latin and Greek origin of all prefixes, suffixes, combining forms, and bases that…

The guide is intended for classroom teachers and school district personnel to use in planning and implementing bilingual education and native language instruction for Yup'ik populations in Alaska. Focus here is on the linguistic and sociocultural characteristics of the Central Yup'ik dialect and its speakers, especially as they relate to the…

This is one of a series of handbooks designed to assist classroom teachers, bilingual-bicultural education and special education program staff, counselors, and school administrators in instructional services for students from native Alaskan language groups. The unique sociocultural and linguistic characteristics of Yup'ik speakers as they relate…

A bibliography of brief annotations of instructional materials for the Russian language includes 93 documents from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), and the Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), that do not go out of print and are widely available in depository systems.…