Decades of research document the powerful academic and socio-affective benefits of a strong home language base and affirmation of home language and culture as a valuable resource. This article explores the implicit challenges, daily realities, opportunities, and practical implications of incorporating language and culture into classrooms as they…

Discusses the issue of language ecology, focusing on Polish language maintenance in Victoria, Australia, and reports on a study conducted with Polish students at a Saturday language school. Results indicate that the longer the period of residence in Australia, the less students use Polish. (25 references) (Author/CK)

In the process of language shift from the immigrant languages to English, everyday communication within the family can become increasingly problematic due to strong divergences in the linguistic competences of the older and the younger generations. This article explores the process of language mediation between different generations, as it occurs…

This work is one in a series that focuses on nine languages representing the bulk of the second language learning effort in Australian education (Arabic, Modern Standard Chinese, French, German, Modern Greek, Indonesian/Malay, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish). These languages were categorized as the Languages of Wider Teaching. This particular work…

This paper focuses on parents' attitudes about their children's maintenance of their native language (L1). It is part of an inter-nordic study of immigrant languages between generation one and generation two, that interviewed 276 parents of North American, Finnish, Turkish, and Vietnamese origin, residing in Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden.…

This article investigates the acquisition of a variety of standard English (SE) by children whose first language is Hawaii Creole English (HCE). The hypothesis was made that, in a speech community with high prestige and low prestige codes, learning the dominant code would not adversely affect performance in the first language. The subjects, in…

This regional dossier aims to provide concise, descriptive information and basic educational statistics about minority language education in a specific region of the European Union--the South of France. Details are provided about the features of the educational system, recent educational policies, divisions of responsibilities, main actors, legal…

This regional dossier aims to provide concise, descriptive information and basic educational statistics about minority language education in a specific region of the European Union--Fryslan, one of the 12 provinces of The Netherlands. Details about the features of the educational system, recent educational policies, divisions of responsibilities,…

This paper examines reading achievement when the maternal/paternal language has become a de facto second language. The performance of a cohort of Greek-Australian high school students (N = 270) on a diagnostic Greek reading test was significantly below that of pupils in second to fourth grades in Greece. The mean item difficulty for…

Papers from a 1990 Dutch colloquium on immigrant language varieties in Europe are presented in four categories: (1) use of immigrant language varieties in Europe; (2) first language acquisition in a second language context; (3) code-switching; and (4) language maintenance and loss. Papers include: "Sweden Finnish" (Jarmo Lainio);…

This document consists of the first six issues of a newsletter that addresses the concerns and needs of foreign-born parents living in the United States. Spanish-language editions of numbers 4-6 are included. Topics addressed include school and community; bilingual education and home environment; demographics; global learning; leadership; and the…

Using the nationally representative National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS88) database, the relationships of first language (L1) proficiency to subsequent use of that language (home language maintenance), English proficiency and achievement and English self-concept were examined. Confirmatory factor analysis results showed that L1…

The quality of language is a matter of concern in numerous educational systems throughout the world. In Quebec, questions of the health of both the French and English languages take on particular importance. This report makes a series of proposals to the Ministry of Higher Education and Science designed to ensure the coherence and quality of…

A followup study looked at the language development of three children (aged 5-6 years during the present study) three years after initial observation. Initially, the children were Spanish-dominant; all had one native English-speaking parent; all were learning English easily. The followup study involved parent interviews and observations of the…

The Carpinteria school district in California has developed a model preschool program to bring Spanish-dominant preschool children up to a level of readiness for school that compares favorably with that of English-speaking children in the same community. That goal is achieved by developing skills in four major areas: Spanish language, cognition,…