Presents the "Englishes" of children from different social backgrounds that are reflected in the forms and functions of their individual ways of communicating. Discusses implications of these language varieties for the classroom. (HTH)

Examines the treatment of Native Americans in 34 elementary social studies textbooks on the adopted textbook list in Virginia. Explains how ten basic concepts are covered, what evaluative terms are used to describe Native Americans, and how Native Americans are treated in pictures in the texts. (SB)

An acculturation scale for Mexican Americans was cross-validated on 450 Mexican American college freshmen in south Texas. Factor analysis yielded four factors identified earlier: language preference, ethnic identity/generation removed from Mexico, ethnicity of friends/associates, extent of direct contact with Mexico and ability to read/write in…

Summarizes the responses of governors and past presidents and executive directors of the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association to the question "If it were in your power, what one thing would you do to improve the reading and writing skills of boys and girls?" (FL)

Discusses what a spontaneously formed group of three children thought and did as they composed a story together. The observations focus on the whole writing process. (HTH)

Details a survey of 264 Canadian elementary school teachers to determine their views on the influence of television advertising language on students' ability to learn standard English usage. Calls for research to ascertain whether the cause and effect relationship seen by a significant portion of the respondents has a basis in fact. (RBW)

The paper examines factors in the differential diagnosis of language-based learning disabilities, reviews models of language processing, and lists frequently used measures of language form (syntax and morphology), content (semantics), usage (pragmatics), and processing. Case studies of three children with various degrees and types of language…

Explains how William Golding's novel can be used to promote the use of exploratory language. Offers activities related to the novel that involve both writing and speaking. (FL)

Examines research findings concerning sex differences in communication and offers suggestions that might heighten students' awareness of effective communication styles. (EL)

Decries the lack of attention to second language learning in the American public schools. Contrasts language study in the United States to that in other countries. (FL)

An introductory guide for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teachers draws attention to three areas of language function: study of language as meaning system, study of individual communicative acts, and study of functions in discourse organization. The latter is useful, since differences in focus of different language researchers have produced…

Supports claim that linguistic and psycholinguistic accounts based on study of English may prove unreliable as guides to sentence processing in even closely related languages such as German and Italian. Results of a test of sentence interpretation indicate that English-speaking Americans rely overwhelmingly on word order, Germans rely on both…

Discusses the linguistic systems of children of Italian immigrants in Australia and the children's mastery of standard Italian and various dialects. Also reviews evidence for claims of the emergence of a new linguistic form labelled "Australitalian." (EKN)

Explored young children's ability to contrast social roles through language, using a technique of controlled improvisation with puppets. Found that from an early age (three or four years) children are aware of a broad range of social variation and are sensitive to the linguistic means of encoding this variation. (PD)

Concludes that sound awareness scores significantly predicated performance of kindergarten children on a sight-word learning task and a decoding-like task. Subjects' knowledge of terminology was unrelated to success on either task. (FL)