This profile in outline form of the English language teaching situation in the Sultanate of Oman examines the role of English in society and in the educational system. The predominance of English as the most important foreign language is noted, and its status as a compulsory subject in elementary and secondary school is discussed. The composition…

Theories concerning the relationship between language acquisition and cognitive development are examined, and implications for education are discussed. There is disagreement about the sources and processes involved in achieving linguistic performance, and in particular, determining linguistic competence. Among the many theories and modifications…

Results of a 1975 sociolinguistic survey of all the ethnic groups of the South American Black population are presented. The sample of 3,653 people between the ages of 15 and 54 was from the urban and rural areas of all the provinces and homelands of the Republic of South Africa. Findings indicate that proficiency in English is relatively strongly…

This framework provides guidelines for use in planning, implementing, and evaluating foreign language instruction. The emphasis is on the following topics: (1) goals, benefits, and rationale of foreign language study; (2) the need for foreign language learning as a catalyst for human interaction in a multicultural society; (3) organizational…

A study is described concerning the ability to recgnize sex bias in language. Thirty-three statements were generated containing statements characterized as sex-biased and sex-fair. It was hypothesized that individuals would have a greater degree of difficulty recognizing sex bias in statements which contained common-use terms or terms with no…

The paper examines the role of ethics in the pursuit of educational quality. The nature of ethics, creation of knowledge, language, and the concept of quality are discussed. These ideas are blended into a new epistemology (theory of knowledge) which allows students to probe philosophical questions as part of the educational process. Ethics are…

This pamphlet is the eighth in a series of ten stemming from the view that language is central to learning, that teachers can gain insights into their work and into learning by examining the language of the classroom, and that current language theory can be the means to such insights. The pamphlet contains a discussion of the uses of language in…

"MORE THAN THE COMMON ELEMENT IN COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE," LANGUAGE IS A SUBJECT APPROPRIATE FOR STUDY IN THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM. HERETOFORE, THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION HAVE SUFFERED FROM TEACHERS' AND STUDENTS' INADEQUATE KNOWLEDGE OF RECENT LANGUAGE DISCOVERIES, AND LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION HAS BEEN INCOMPLETE AND DISORDERLY.…

This publication comprises a collection of papers dealing with the teaching of English as a subject and as a medium of instruction in the elementary grades in Nigeria. Titles and authors are--(1) "The Background to English in the Primary School" by B.W. Tiffen; (2) "The Six Year Primary Course" by S. Gwarzo; (3)…

This paper explores the differences between the understanding or knowledge of certain social rules, and their use, as seen in pronoun selection, by children in two different social settings within the same culture area. Different philosophies concerning the interdependence of social, cognitive, and linguistic development are reviewed. The specific…

This volume is a selection of papers prepared for a conference on sociolinguistically oriented language surveys organized by the Center for Applied Linguistics and held in New York in September 1971. The purpose of the conference was to review the role and function of such language surveys in the light of surveys conducted in recent years. The…

This study of contact between the French and English language groups in Canada is based on an ecological approach, emphasizing factors such as population composition, residential patterns, occupational pressures and age and sex differences rather than cultural or psychological ones. Part 1 begins with a general discussion of the problems of…

This article reviews certain generatively-based ideas on transactional behavior current in anthropology and discusses their relevance for sociolinguistics. The author finds that whereas sociolinguists tend to ignore such factors as social change and social mobility, anthropologists such as F. Barth ("Models of Social Behavior," 1966) express the…

It was hypothesized that learning problems differ for Indian students coming from homes where only an Indian language is spoken, Indian children whose families speak both an Indian language and English, and those from homes where only English is spoken. The student population was divided into 3 roughly equivalent groups by language category, and…

Several external and internal factors combine to hinder optimal communication in "Competency," the language of behavior modification. As a language, Competency a) is spoken with varying degrees of fluency and facility, b) is difficult to translate into English because the common vocabulary is used descriptively in English while it is…