Discusses the goals of native language instruction advocating a broadening of horizons, away from traditional grammar and literature teaching, and towards culturally based communication skills. Sociocultural awareness is stressed as the fundamental component of a teacher's background and the basis for mastering the relevant aspects of…

Focuses on the legal framework supporting the development of bilingual education. Reviews minority language issues and relevant issues from international law and regional law establish the legal parameters of its promotion. Practical ramifications of this are illustrate with reference o Scottish Gaelic. (Author/VWL)

Describes a pilot language renewal program--Tachi as a Second Language--implemented in a California preschool. (RAE)

This paper discusses the validity and utility of contrastive analysis for language teaching, focusing on the utility of contrastive analysis over error analysis in analyzing adverbial positioning in sentences produced by two groups of native speakers of English and Arabic. Contains 13 references. (MDM)

Provides the rationale for California's Foreign Language Framework assertion that a model curriculum for foreign languages includes "instruction in native languages for those students who already speak a language other than English." Special focus is on Spanish instruction for Spanish-speaking college students in California. (55…

Outlines moves to preserve and protect America's native languages. Discusses the positive and negative roles that schools can play. (Author/VWL)

In this tribute to LaVonne Ruoff, the author describes Ruoff as the "Eleanor Roosevelt of Native American Literature," noting her enormous amount of committee and administrative work done to ensure that the infant American Indian studies discipline was saved and would thrive. In addition to Ruoff's own literary works in the field, she furthered…

Orchestrating an Indigenous language program for Indigenous peoples within any academic environment is no easy task. In most cases, Indigenous languages are taught by a recognized community expert, in the community; teaching that same language in a university environment is much more challenging. This article responds to Mindy J. Morgan's…

Patterns of developmental change in phonetic perception are critical to theory development. Many previous studies document a decline in nonnative phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. However, much less experimental attention has been paid to developmental change in native-language phonetic perception over the same time period. We…

Goldsmiths College is one of a number of providers of initial teacher education to have introduced courses in community/heritage languages in the UK in recent years. Students taking the course gain experience in working with a wide range of learners across different sectors (state maintained, independent and complementary). This study is based on…

The community is an important stakeholder in language education, and community views are critical for the successful implementation of new language policies. This article reports on a study on multilingual language policies conducted in two primary schools in two communities in eastern Uganda, one rural and one urban, from 2005 through 2006. The…

This paper explores the ways in which dual language books are used in England to support bilingual pupils in school. While pupils in many schools speak a wide range of languages at home, these hardly feature in the curriculum. In the context of a project in which an education authority provided dual language books to primary schools, the paper…

This literature survey was conducted to provide information on Aboriginal language learning and teaching in Alberta. Specifically, it provides an overview of the current literature relating to: the language-to-culture connection, aboriginal language pedagogy and instructional practices, and parental and community involvement. The Aboriginal…

Recent national security concerns and global trade interests have led many to claim that there is a foreign language "crisis" in the US. Some argue that heritage and community language (HL-CL) speakers in the US constitute a resource waiting to be tapped to solve this crisis. This article addresses the issue of whether heritage and community…

This article focuses on the identity accounts of a group of Chinese children who attend a heritage language school. Bakhtin's concepts of ideological becoming, and authoritative and internally persuasive discourse, frame our exploration. Taking a dialogic view of language and learning raises questions about schools as socializing spaces and…