A Norwegian study of the effectiveness of teaching young children to read and write using their vernacular as the medium of instruction is reported. In 1980-81 and 1981-82, ten classes of beginning primary students were given all initial instruction in reading and writing in the vernacular. Because no language standardization occurs in the…

A study comparing the dialects of Ozark and Appalachian English addresses a possible relationship between the two dialects. The study compares selected structures in the two dialects in order to (1) examine similarities and differences, (2) investigate the behavior of a range of ages (10-70+) to determine patterns of change, (3) examine…

Through numerous contributions from the field of linguistics, a modified language arts curriculum has resulted. Language arts teachers need to be thoroughly versed in content and methodology recommendations made by linguists. One such recommendation, for example, is that students should understand sentence patterns in English. These patterns…

A study examined final vowel qualities in the speech of seven English speakers from the urban Tyneside area of England. It focused on variations in the pronunciation of the final "y" (e.g., city, happy, tiny) and their explanation by way of (1) the resonance characteristics associated with the articulatory gesture, (2) the…

A bibliography on Black Americans contains over 450 citations of articles, papers, monographs, and books in seven categories: culture (language and customs); normal speech and language acquisition (theoretical framework, mother-child interaction, language community, form, content, usage, cognitive development); sociolinguistics (issues, dialect…

Examination of representative stories told by black American children of West African descent in South Carolina shows that specific cultural motifs have been preserved in the oral tradition of black communities. Typical stories are tales of the supernatural, such as the Hag story about mortals who shed their skin at night to do evil deeds.…

Intended to provide for the reader a new road to study India, the booklet encourages students to experience the languages of India as an avenue to learning something about its people. The workbook introduces the reader to the languages of India; shows through activities and research the contributions of Indian languages to English; and provides a…

The aim of this text is to introduce Liberian English, which includes the many varieties of English spoken by Liberians, to Peace Corps volunteers. The text is divided into two sections. The first part talks about Liberian English, while the second part uses Liberian English to describe aspects of contemporary Liberian culture. Part one contains…

As an introducation to a symposium on curricular innovation, a sociolinguistic perspective is used to tie together presentations to follow on collaborative and deliberative processes in pedagogy, research, and evaluation in school settings. Collaboration and deliberation, as processes, are bound by the same constraints and potentials inherent in…

The proposition that the acquisition of semantic notions in language is predictable from cognitive development is supported by this investigation. Procedure involved the administration of sentence repetition and several Piagetian tasks to kindergarten, first and second grade children from black inner-city, white middle-class and white rural…

Discusses a pilot program of an inservice workshop in language and communication in Georgia; the program was designed to determine if material about language and communication could be presented economically to teachers and if the program affected the teachers' attitudes. (Author/JM)

Using folklore as educational material helps students to understand and appreciate their society and themselves, while developing their reading interests. This paper suggests ways in which folklore can be used in independent teaching units, as supportive material for motivation, and as recreational material in reading/language arts classes. The…

This paper describes a method for determining whether the language variations of Spanish-English bilingual speakers are anomalous, idiosyncratic, or truly dialectical, and reports the testing of that method. Elements of the method include presenting sentences that have grammatical/syntactic language variations, having subjects perform operational…

Noting that the question of how to evaluate the effect of an educational program on child language reduces to the question of how to analyze child language, the author discusses ways to measure those functional aspects of child language which may be most sensitive to both environmental interferences and environmental facilitations. (Author/JM)

This guide provides the teacher of multiethnic students with information and lesson plans for teaching about black Americans. The guide contains seven sections, the first of which outlines African history and the history of blacks in the United States, specifically Michigan. Section two examines the African oral tradition and discusses African…