This paper is divided into two sections related to an experimental program in English for black Americans. The first section is a report describing the program. In 1969, approximately 150 black students from urban ghettos in the North and rural communities in the South were admitted to the University of Wisconsin under a special scholarship…

During the 1969-70 school year, a follow-up program was conducted for participants of the summer 1969 institute on Teaching Alaskan Native Youth. On-site seminars and individual conferences were conducted with 20 teachers and aides (serving in 16 rural Alaskan communities in which the predominant first language is Yupik, Inupik, or Athabascan) to…

Despite the recent focus on the role of dialect differences in creating learning difficulties for speakers of nonstandard dialects of English, research has tended to concentrate on difficulties related to speaking and reading, while ignoring those involved in teaching writing to these students. This paper attempts to meet the need for such studies…

To develop positive speech patterns in disadvantaged students, the More Effective Schools Program in New York City instigated an experimental speech improvement program, K-6, in 20 of its elementary schools. Three typical speech-related problems of the disadvantaged--lack of school "know-how," inability to verbalize well, and the presence of poor…

The purpose of this book is "to familiarize the student of linguistics with the social context of speech, and to familiarize the student of society with language as a referent and dimension of social behavior." An attempt is made at a conceptual integration of the literature of sociolinguistics (with emphasis on work published in the 1960's) so…

This study presents the first descriptive analysis of the structure of Sa'i:di, the variety of Egyptian Arabic spoken by the inhabitants of the Nile Valley between Cairo and Aswan. It is hoped that this study, designed to describe the phonemics, morphemics, and syntax of Sa'i:di, will contribute to dialect studies of the varieties of Arabic spoken…

This beginning text is designed to teach the student to speak and understand modern Kabul (Afghan) Persian. (It is suggested that the materials be studied with a native speaker of Kabul Persian.) Chapter I presents the vowels and consonants in initial, medial, and final position, with a brief description of their articulation and their closest…

Following a review of the literature, a study to provide data on the interference effects of another dialect on aspects of reading performance was carried out in Newfoundland, Canada. Subjects were presented with oral reading material in standard English form and in a form which incorporated selected, validated, morphological features of grade…

The purpose of this research was to frame a hypothesis accounting for the observed behavior of particular children in a contact language area, in an attempt to understand their linguistic learning processes. The community involved was the township of Benque Viejo at the Guatemalan frontier, and the four informants, aged 10-13, spoke varying…

Three million children being schooled in the educational system of America are expected to forego the use of their native language while in the school environs and accept English as the mode of communication. To assess the effect of mode of language instruction on the student's concept of self as well as student achievement in reading, the…

This paper investigates some of the underlying assumptions prevalent in much of the research concerning the language patterns of black children and compares two competing research approaches: the deficit model, which assumes that black children from the ghetto hear very little language, much of it ill-formed, and that they are impoverished in…

Based on the belief that the most appropriate focus of a language arts curriculum is the process and content of communication, these several unipacs (instructional packets) explore some essential elements of communication which should be incorporated into a curricular theory: (1) abstraction , which is the assertion that words may be classified as…

Black English, the particular variation of the English language used by many American Negroes, is frequently condemned as inferior to standard English by arbiters of language usage, but many Negroes find the structures and style of black English satisfactory for their communication needs. Black English is the result of a complex, developmental…

The structure, complexity, and peculiarities of the English language are examined in this book, which begins with a discussion of the nature of language. Chapters are devoted to (1) naming--"Language as Answer to a Need"; (2) grammar--"Language as Economy"; (3) words--"Language as the Finding of Minds"; (4) etymology--"Language to Stretch Brains…

Papers of the special study institute on Special Language Programming for Exceptional Children with Language Disorders focus on the following objectives: delineation of the development and functions of language as related to special language problems, clarification of the role of the speech and language specialist, and establishment of guidelines…