Examines current sociolinguistic theories concerning nonstandard English in an effort to help teachers of standard English to understand the problems facing their students and to apply their new knowledge in the classroom. (PM)

Developing language habits in students leads to discussion of their self esteem as well as to the values of the dominant society. (JH)

Because of the diversity of Arabic dialects (Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, Algerian, Moroccan, Libyan, Sudanese, Saudi Arabian, Palestinian, and Egyptian), and the fact that Arabic writing allows for a wide range of different pronunciations, the question faced by students is where to begin. It is instructive to consider how this problem is dealt with…

The linguistic theory of contrastive analysis, which provides pragmatic insights into the teaching of foreign languages, can be equally successful when applied to the teaching of one dialect of a language to speakers of its other dialects. This paper briefly illustrates how a theoretically constructed hierarchy of difficulty, originally designed…

This document brings together three papers dealing with the teaching of standard English to speakers of substandard varieties of the language, as well as of English-based pidgins or creoles. The first two papers are by linguists. The essay "Foreign Language Teaching Methods in Quasi-Foreign Language Situations" by William A. Stewart is intended to…

This article discusses the various dialects of English spoken in Liberia and analyzes the problems of Liberian students in writing compositions in English. Errors arise mainly from differences in culture and cognition, not from superficial linguistic problems. (CFM)

This paper first considers the inadequacy of definitions of dialect speech that are too rigid. Some of the ways in which dialect can influence the performance of children in school are discussed, and the notion that dialect is an indication of linguistic deficit is also considered. In the last part of the paper, the attitude of the Schools Council…

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO TEST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A PROGRAM UTILIZING TAPE RECORDED RESPONSIVE LESSONS TO HELP URBAN PRIMARY CHILDREN DEVELOP A STANDARD ENGLISH DIALECT. AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP OF 36 CHILDREN HEARD AND RECITED 8- TO 10-MINUTE TAPES OF POEMS, SONGS, AND SPEECH GAMES, WHILE 36 CHILDREN IN A CONTROL GROUP WERE INSTRUCTED IN…

This article discusses comprehension problems encountered by students of French as a second language as a result of the mismatch between the standard language they learn in classrooms and the language used by native speakers. (CLK)

This discussion begins with a brief description of three approaches to teaching standard Spanish as a second dialect (S.S.S.D.), called the "eradication" approach, the "second dialect" approach, and the "both dialects" approach, which is favored here. Because the teacher of standard Spanish as a second dialect is…

This study is a description of the linguistic differences between three Persian dialects. The underlying aim of the study is to provide the linguistic facts necessary to evaluate the implications of divergence between the dialects for students of Persian. It would appear that if students experience difficulty in adjusting from one dialect to…

Students have a right to use the dialect and language of their own cultural heritage. Language and dialect rights have many advantages for the user, including prestige, self-confidence, group identity, opportunity to project personality and style, appreciation and respect of cultural heritage, and self-awareness. All dialects are equal and are…

Activities for teaching Ebonics-speaking children to differentiate between problematic standard English and Ebonic forms are presented. (Author/MC)

Foreign language teaching methodology is confronted with the problem of teaching Spanish to English-dominant native Spanish speakers. Linguistic documentation is lacking to accurately evaluate the linguistic competence of the bilingual student, documentation also useful in the preparation of adequate instructional materials. This paper describes…