The present paper reports on a study conducted in 1973, designed to measure the English competence and performance of bilingual fourth graders in selected schools in southern Arizona and the extent to which the first language (Spanish) interfered with the second (English). The study also attempted to determine which patterns might yet be unlearned…

In language instruction, a dependable informational base of fact, experience, or judgment is essential if students are to develop a functional literacy. Yet the language information base in use today--the set of concepts about what language is, how it works, and how individual languages are maintained--has proven inadequate and unreliable. Reform,…

For several years in Switzerland it had been clear that adolescents with previous learning difficulties in their own country experienced even greater academic problems in Switzerland where they were expected to attend school with native speakers of French. Therefore, an experimental class was organized of Spanish and Italian-speaking children who…