Paper read at the American Educational Research Association Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1970. Research supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. (DS)

Discusses problems of present and future urban educators, specifically in the inner-city, and makes specific reference to the fact that the problems involve ethnic and racial differences. (Author)

Teachers of culturally different students should not ridicule or verbally abuse their students, but should try to show them how the characteristics of formal English differ from urban Black English. They must be able to explain the appropriateness of standard English usage in certain situations, while they still maintain respect for the students'…

The experiment reported on in this paper investigated primarily the overall effectiveness in raising the language achievement of black children of the pattern practice approach and the use of overall contrasts between standard and nonstandard dialects within the pattern practice approach. The experiment was conducted in three third-grade and three…

In this paper the author provides a brief overview of some of the ways in which recent sociolinguistic research is contributing to our knowledge of language teaching. The focus is on the American urban situation, especially as it relates to poor black children. One of the greatest deterrents to describing such situation has been our lack of tools…