Despite public discourse affirming the importance of maintaining the Navajo language and despite extensive language maintenance efforts by Navajo schools, the Navajo people are experiencing a rapid shift from Navajo to English. This book draws on fieldwork conducted in the small community of Tsaile, on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern…

A study explored the language use patterns, motivations and attitudes toward Americans or the British in the formal English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom, changes in orientations and motivations, and instructional preferences of limited-English-proficient Korean high school students. Subjects were 40 male and 40 female students randomly…

One of the ways in which language testing interfaces with applied linguistics is in the definition and validation of the constructs that underlie language tests. When language testers and score users interpret scores on a test, they do so by implicit and explicit reference to the construct on which the test is based. Equally, when applied to new…

"Malik Goes to School: Examining the Language Skills of African American Students From Preschool-5th Grade" synthesizes a decade of research by the authors, Holly Craig and Julie Washington, on the oral language and literacy skills of African American children from preschool to fifth grade. Their research has characterized significant influences…

For a number of years there has been a growing interest in the specialized field of teaching English as a second language in the United States and abroad. Many colleges and universities in this country have offered special courses for foreign students. Several institutions have offered programs for the preparation of teachers in this field for…

Examines the role of polemical discourse (heated and confrontational arguments often aimed at an opponent) in the early formation of the Christian church. Maintains that these linguistic habits still exert a powerful and often destructive influence. Discusses several biblical stories in terms of polemical discourse and offers alternative…

Examines the relationship between story-telling and children's construction of meaning. Includes transcripts of children's discussions of a story involving Vietnamese refugee children. Maintains that children, especially when given encouraging contexts, can construct and discover meaningful insights. Discusses the role of the teacher in this…

Examines the pedagogic concept of cultural pluralism and outlines specific methods for implementing the concept in the social studies curriculum. Identifies and analyzes various forms of cultural biases, reviewing means for identifying such biases, and presenting remedies for eliminating them from the instructional setting. (LS)

Recent history of policy development for adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) in Australia is in need of scrutiny. Two lines of analysis are useful for framing developments in language policy in Australia: the first examines the ways in which professional cultures operate to influence policy and the second looks at orientations in policy.…

Puerto Ricans have been largely ignored in the current debate over English as a national language. Once the rhetoric of language restrictionists is discarded, the real issue becomes that of the political empowerment of Puerto Ricans. The history of language policy in relation to Puerto Ricans is also reviewed. (SLD)

This paper focuses on the attitudes and perceptions of school administrators, teachers, and other school personnel in a Latino-impacted school district in a Midwestern state. As this district struggles to meet the educational needs of a growing number of Latino students, this research finds that school officials increasingly employ assimilationist…

This article explores the ways in which job advertisements for physical education (PE) teachers in England perpetuate stereotypical notions of gender and how this can affect recruitment within the profession. It assesses the extent to which the "gendered" vocabulary used in job advertisements can potentially influence the decision-making…

Since the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Education has enthusiastically embraced bilingual education. In this paper, the author evaluates the federal bilingual education program. Based on her studies of the implementation of bilingual education in California, Massachusetts, and New York City, she concludes that the program is of dubious value. She…

A great deal of research has addressed the tension between economic globalization and local cultural identity, and the tension between convergence in global policy objectives and divergence in local practices, but research has not explored the impact of the complex interactions between these tensions on an individual university, especially in…

This article reports on a critical discourse analysis of Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) students' written reflections on their experience of a simulated racial inequality exercise at a university in Japan. Initially, the reflections were compared thematically with previously published narratives by people who had experienced racism.…