This paper is based on an observational study concerning the effectiveness of elementary education. It was conducted in a rural area near Alotau, the provincial capital of the Milne Bay Province, with a special focus on the Maiwala Elementary School. In this paper, the author first briefly describes what elementary education is and how it has been…

Many parents in the United States who speak and value a language other than English feel torn-between wanting their children to develop age-appropriate fluency and literacy in the language of their heritage, and wanting their children to acquire English as quickly and flawlessly as possible. When parents support communication in and acquisition of…

Indigenous-language education is critical in the rural and small-town communities with mixed native and non-native populations that constitute the headwaters of many dying tongues. Emerging from interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 on the Flathead Indian Reservation with 89 study participants holding diverse perspectives is the need for a…

The teaching of grammar is discussed from an instrumental point of view: what beneficial effects does such teaching have for students' language abilities (especially writing)? Two ways of approaching grammar teaching are confronted with each other: the learning of explicit rules and meta-linguistic knowledge about language on one hand and learning…

This paper examines recent attempts by the Malawi government to introduce local languages into the primary school system and other secondary domains of national life, breaking more than 30 years of Chichewa/English monopoly. In a country where the language policy has essentially established the hegemony of English over indigenous languages, the…

This article presents a critical analysis of language ideologies in the instructional discourse of Spanish for heritage speakers in the United States. We focus on the discourse present in prefaces and introductions to Spanish for heritage speakers textbooks published between 1970 and 2000. Whereas previous research on language ideologies in…

The transcript (translated into English) of a roundtable discussion of literacy among francophone women in Canada begins with the personal narrative of one women who gained literacy skills as an adult. The panel of three specialists in francophone women's literacy in Canada then look at the literacy rate among Canadian women, and the demand for…

The design and development of GRACILE, a collaborative learning environment in the domain of Japanese language patterns and expressions, is described. The environment is designed to allow learning goals communication, learning activities negotiation, and collaboration between learners. From a group of student models, a potential development level…

The purpose of this study was to compare the Gilbertian mathetical sequence (MS) with the Skinnerian logical sequence (LS) methodologies in their effectiveness for language teaching. A series of 3 experiments were designed to investigate the effect of MS and LS on the teaching of Japanese Kanji characters to 24 Japanese fifth-graders. The students…

This report summarizes advances in bilingual education that help linguistically and culturally diverse (LCD) students reach high levels of achievement and performance. Factors to be considered include the native language, bilingualism and academic achievement, curriculum, parental and community influences, and programmatic evaluation. The reports…

The directory lists French immersion programs at the elementary and secondary school levels in each province and territory of Canada. They are arranged alphabetically by province or territory, then by city or town within those categories. Data pertain to the 1995-96 school year. Information provided for each region includes general information on…

In response to problems encountered in teaching Spanish to native speakers who had learned Spanish as their first (oral) language but because of their schooling were literate only in English, a study was conducted to explore issues related to development of native-language literacy skills after acquisition of second-language literacy. Two adult…

In a case study, a child's acquisition and maintenance of Chinese (as a first language) and English (as a second language) were documented. The child brought to the United States at age 3.5, acquired English in 2 years and was encouraged to maintain his Chinese skills through a family-based education program. For 6 months the boy was given Chinese…

This volume includes papers delivered at the Ninth Annual International Native American Language Issues (NALI) Institute. Dick Littlebear's keynote address describes the importance of maintaining Native American languages. James Crawford's "Language Freedom and Restriction: A Historical Approach to the Official Language Controversy,"…

This volume contains 11 selected papers from the first Mokakit conference on Indian education in Canada. Mokakit, a Blackfoot word meaning "to strive for wisdom," was selected as the name of the sponsoring organization, which promotes the participation of Indians at all levels of educational research. Papers include: (1) "Locally…