NCCRESt

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Language Attitudes

• After the Tsunami, Some Dilemmas: Japanese Language Studies in Multicultural Australia. Language Australia Research Policy and Practice Papers
  This paper describes responses to linguistic pluralism in Australian policy in relation to Australia's Asian language context, and the teaching and learning of Japanese within these two frameworks. Finally, the paper considers some ideas relating intercultural language learning to all second language study termed: the Third Place.
• Authentic Literacy Assessment (ALA) Development: An Instruction Based Assessment That Is Responsive to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
  Describes the continuing development of an authentic assessment work-in-progress, focusing on efforts to develop and implement an assessment process and tool of particular significance to multicultural and multilingual instructional settings. The context is a writing assessment for multicultural and multilingual elementary school students.
• CCCC's Role in the Struggle for Language Rights
  Recounts the activist history of the Conference on College Composition and Communication in working toward a more democratic valuing of language diversity by both teachers and the public. Focuses on two organizational policies of CCCC, the "Students' Right" resolution of 1974 and the "National Language Policy" of 1988, incorporating articles and commentaries on language from this journal.
• Formal vs. Non-Formal Vernacular Education: The Education Reform in Papua New Guinea
  Discusses a community-based nonformal education movement in Papua New Guinea to use hundreds of the country's languages to teach initial literacy in local preschool and adult education programs. The article describes this movement, the proposed government reform of the English-only formal education system and the ensuing conflicts.
• Hong Kong Students' Attitudes Towards Cantonese, Putonghua, and English After the Change of Sovereignty
  Examined the attitudes of Hong Kong secondary school students toward English, Cantonese, and Putonghua. Compared the language attitudes of two main groups of Hong Kong students, middle class elite and working class low achievers.
• Multicultural Education in Scotland: Ourselves and Others
  Examines the persistence of prejudice, especially about language, at a time when multicultural educational objectives are (apparently) widely accepted. Discusses belief in the "bilingual deficit," views of culture within Scotland, the role of cultural "markers" in religion and language, acculturation in various contexts, and needed tasks within multicultural education.
• Nonnative English Speakers: Language Bigotry in English Mainstream Classrooms
  Examines and discusses ways in which both subtle and blatant bigotry toward nonnative speakers of English is present in departments of English. Illustrates how unfounded and inaccurate beliefs about English language proficiency create a hostile climate for a new population of students.
• Social, Political, Educational, Linguistic and Cultural (Dis-)Incentives for Languages Education in Australia
  Examines the extent to which the shifting ideological discourse on multiculturalism in Australia affects the personal attitudes and perspectives of bilingual and bicultural Australian born and educated parents of Hellenic background with regard to the education of their children. (Author/VWL).
• The Attitudes of Bilingual Children to Their Languages
  Examined bilingual Australian elementary students' attitudes toward their first and second languages, noting attitudes they attributed to significant others in various contexts and investigating the impact of demographic and educational factors. Interviews indicated that children held significantly different attitudes toward first and second languages which differed across contexts.
• The Attitudes of Bilingual Children to Their Languages
  Examined bilingual Australian elementary students' attitudes toward their first and second languages, noting attitudes they attributed to significant others in various contexts and investigating the impact of demographic and educational factors. Interviews indicated that children held significantly different attitudes toward first and second languages which differed across contexts.
• What's a (White) Teacher To Do about Black English?
  Argues that it is important for Black students and for all students to understand that Black English is indeed a language with rules, beauty, and power so that they come to respect it, respect its history, and respect their own bilingualism. (SR).