Provides a case study of one Chinese boy's experience learning to read in Great Britain. Compares the formal didactic approach of the Chinese school with the developmental approach of the English reception school. Shows how many contributory factors influence student learning and argues for fuller appreciation of this fact. (HB)

Investigated the effects of language background on success in the learning of Chinese characters by first-year college students of Chinese. An instrument consisting of a character-recognition task and a production task was employed. Eighty-five bilingual speakers of English and Chinese and 60 nonheritage learners from seven institutions…

Explores folktales from China, Africa, and Russia suggesting ways to utilize them in the social studies classroom as a means to teaching children about other cultures. Warns that when using folktales it is important to explain that the folktales do not bear a one-to-one relationship with present-day societies. (CMK)

Discusses problems in the classification of ethnic groups by language, focusing on the case of a marginal Chinese group from northeast Vietnam and the shifting of ethnic identity according to geographic location. Influences of colonialism and nationalist feeling in this dilemma are examined. (MSE)

Looks at naturalistic samples of adult-to-child speech to determine whether variations in the input are consistent with reported variations in the proportions of nouns and verbs in children's early vocabularies. Naturalistic speech samples from English-, Italian-, and Mandarin-speaking children and their caregivers were examined. (Author/JL)

Argues that, for new immigrant children, literacy education that challenges students to speak and engage in meaningful work (not worksheets and handwriting practice) is the key to initiating them into American culture, to helping them feel this country is their home, and to unlocking their lonely hearts. Focuses on the special problems of Chinese…

Examined whether parent-child conflict and cohesion during adolescence vary among families characterized as having different cultural traditions regarding parental authority and individual autonomy. Despite holding different beliefs about parental authority and individual autonomy, Mexican-, Chinese-, Filipino-, and European-American adolescents…

Provides information on china painting, focusing on Kurt Weiser, who paints on ceramics using china paints. Discusses his techniques and describes his work titled "Woman with Mongoose." Includes accompanying projects for art history, visual arts, language arts, natural science, and science or mathematics. (CMK)

Information sequencing in complex sentences, discourse, and text in modern standard Chinese (MSC) is the modifying-modified sequence. This principle contrasts with English, where main information appears at the beginning of the speech acts of requests. The contribution of this difference to cross-cultural misunderstanding is described. (Contains…

Reports on an empirical study of the politeness strategies in Chinese business correspondence and considers its implications in teaching business Chinese. The study investigated 20 examples of business correspondence by native speakers of Chinese. By analyzing linguistic/stylistic features of the letters in two predesigned situations, the study…

Investigated effects of first language processing on second language morphological awareness. Preliminary cross-linguistic comparisons indicated that morphological awareness in two typologically distinct languages, Chinese and English, differs in several major ways. Tested hypotheses from the study with two groups of English-as-a-Second-Language…

Investigates sociocultural and family factors that contribute to children's academic achievement among 40 European American (EA) and 40 second-generation Chinese American (CA) preschool and kindergarten children. CA children outscored EA children in mathematics at all three intervals, and were better readers by the third interval. CA parents…

Examines attitudes and behaviors regarding close relationships between European and Asian Americans, focusing specifically on five subgroups of Asian Americans. Finds that the European Americans did not differentiate among the subgroups and their attitudes were less positive toward Asian Americans, while five subgroups expressed a hierarchy of…

Describes a lawsuit brought by Chinese American families against one academic high school. Parents challenged the admission process, including special consideration for African American and Hispanic students. Chinese American families argued that any consideration of race in the application process violated equal protection. Advances a notion of…

Examines the role of American television and video in Chinese American children's culture of play and peer interaction using ethnography. Notes both White and Chinese children had access to similar media, yet they used media information very differently in their play. Calls for the media industry to reexamine their role in children's socialization…