In order to conduct a sociolinguistic analysis of language acquisition, data were collected on one bilingual child's speech through diary notes and tape recordings made at regular intervals from birth to age 5, with special attention given to contextual information related to each speech event. The child's languages include Spanish, English, and a…

This booklet is one of a series developed by the Northern Colorado Educational Board of Cooperative Services to make available to teachers ideas designed and tested by other teachers. The activities are gathered from educational journals as well as from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). The first section of the booklet contains…

The author raises the question of what one can say about the structure of a person's language from a sample of his speech production and urges the calculating of information theory parameters for grammatical constructions. What has to be done is to decide what construction to focus on and what types to recognize as exemplifying that construction.…

The purpose of this study was to determine: (1) the effects of repeating words in compound sentences; and (2) the differences in encoding processes in short term memory for natural language materials compared with nonlinguistic material. A series of give experiments was administered to first graders, college students, and older subjects. The…

The "Tell-And-Find Picture Game" is designed to teach both speaking and listening comprehension skills to preschool children. The game is arranged to provide a cooperative experience for two players who take turns in the role of a speaker and of a listener. In order to test the effectiveness of the game in encouraging cognitive gains, a…

The spontaneous speech of a six-year-old bilingual child was analyzed for this study. The child has lived in the United States and English is her primary language but her parents speak only French in the home and she has spent several months in France during three visits there. The data used in this study were collected in the child's home by her…

This study of child language acquisition concerns various structural and paralinguistic features of language and examines their role in the total language acquisition process. The informants were three children (two boys and one girl) aged five years, two months; three years, four months; and one year, nine months. Their speech was recorded over a…

A project has been initiated to develop educational games for teaching cognitive skills to Head Start children. It is hypothesized that while a game format may be less efficient and less effective than conventional methods for the teaching of specific skills, the use of games in the curriculum will lead to significant improvement in attitude…

This document presents the case for the use of situational reinforcement (SR) as a language teaching method of which all teachers of languages should be made aware. SR is defined as a horizontal approach to language learning, a process of gradual familiarization where students are presented with a mixture of language structures from the outset;…

Cognitive categories in infants that have relevance for linguistic development were investigated. "Agent" and "recipient," the categories chosen, are relational categories which by definition involve action. This experiment explored infants' (48 males, 14-24 months of age) sensitivity to certain "action parameters" of events. The question of…

This book provides an introduction to psycholinguistics, and applies linguistic knowledge to early childhood learning. The chapters that comprise the book are as follows: I. The Elements of Language; II. Language and Situation; III. The Acquisition of Language; IV. Language and Reality; V. The Language Environment; VI. Capabilities in Language;…

This study assessed the effectiveness of 5 hours of training on 3-year-old children's comprehension and production of the passive, negative, possessive, and negative passive syntactic structures. A comprehension test identified 20 children who did not evidence understanding of these structures. Subjects were then randomly assigned to experimental…

This study compared the growth in language development between the experimental group receiving direct instruction and the control group receiving a more nondirective traditional type of program. Of the 94 3- and 4-year-old children in the study, 57% were of Mexican-American descent, 39% were of white-American background, and 4% were black. The…

The story of the resistance of the American Indian to the conquest of his lands unfolds in this outline intended for senior high school students. The contents cover events from the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock to the occupation of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay by the Indians in 1970. Among the items included in the packet are the…

This newsletter continues to report on the use and instruction of English throughout the world. Articles here concern the status and role of English in Zaire, Portugal, Taiwan, Israel, Tanzania, and Burundi. One report discusses the work and scope of the Center for English Language Research and Teaching in Beirut; another article reports on…