2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page i GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ROUND TABLE ON LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS 1999 Language in Our Time: Bilingual Education and Official English, Ebonics and Standard English, Immigration and the Unz Initiative James E. Alatis and Ai-Hui Tan, Editors Georgetown University Press/Washington, D.C. Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page ii Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. © 2001 by Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10987654321 2001 This volume is printed on acid-free offset book paper. Library of Congress Catalog Number ISBN 0-87840-132-6 ISSN 0186-7207 Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page iii IN MEMORY OF REVEREND RICHARD J. O’BRIEN, S.J. 1922–1999 Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page iv Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page v Contents James E. Alatis, Georgetown University Introduction to the volume 1 David L. Red, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State Adults learning to read in a second script: What we’ve learned 2 Margaret E. Malone, Peace Corps—Washington, D.C. Trends in Peace Corps volunteer language proficiency 19 Pardee Lowe, Jr., National Cryptologic School Evidence for the greater ease of use of the ILR language skill level descriptions for speaking 24 Madeline Ehrman, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State Bringing learning strategies to the student: The FSI language learning consultation service 41 Beth A. Mackey, Department of Defense Can you beat guessing in multiple-choice testing? 59 Frederick H. Jackson and Marsha A. Kaplan, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching 71 James R. Child, National Security Agency, Department of Defense Analysis of texts and critique of judgment 88 Roger W. Shuy, Georgetown University Paved with good intentions: Words of advice for the rocky road of bureaucratic language 98 Stephen D. Krashen, University of Southern California Bilingual education: Arguments for and (bogus) arguments against 111 Rosalie Pedalino Porter, Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ) Educating English language learners in U.S. schools: Agenda for a new millennium 128 Content madev available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page vi vi / GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ROUND TABLE ON LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS 1999 Eric J. Stone, U.S. ENGLISH Foundation The Official English movement and bilingual education reform 139 Anna Uhl Chamot, The George Washington University Literacy development in high school English language learners 149 Bernard Spolsky, Bar-Ilan University Languages in Israel: Policy, practice, and ideology 164 Donna Christian, Center for Applied Linguistics Language and policy issues in the education of immigrant students 175 Colleen Cotter, Georgetown University The pragmatic implications of “boilerplate” in news coverage of California ballot initiative controversies 187 Leanne Hinton, University of California at Berkeley Involuntary language loss among immigrants: Asian-American linguistic autobiographies 203 Salikoko S. Mufwene, University of Chicago Ebonics and standard English in the classroom: Some issues 253 Ralph W. Fasold, Georgetown University Ebonic need not be English 262 Denise E. Murray, Macquarie University Whose “standard”? What the Ebonics debate tells us about language, power, and pedagogy 281 Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University From definition to policy: The ideological struggle of African-American English 292 Shaligram Shukla, Georgetown University South Asian bilingualism: Hindi and Bhojpuri 314 John A. Rassias, Dartmouth College Gods, demi-gods, heroes, anti-heroes, fallen angels, and fallen arches 323 G. Richard Tucker, Carnegie Mellon University A global perspective on bilingualism and bilingual education 332 Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page vii CONTENTS / vii Anne Pakir, National University of Singapore Bilingual education with English as an official language: Sociocultural implications 341 Reinhold Freudenstein, Philipps-Universität, Marburg Bilingualism, language policy, and the European Union 350 Wendy D. Bokhorst-Heng, American University Bilingual education and the dialectics of national integration 356 Edwin Thumboo, National University of Singapore The sweet breath of words: Language as nuance in Diaspora creativity 371 Roger Bowers, The World of Language, London What in the world is the World of Language? 389 Tom McArthur, English Today, Cambridge University Press World or International or Global English—and what is it anyway? 396 Ronald Scollon, Georgetown University Multilingualism and intellectual property: Visual holophrastic discourse and the commodity/sign 404 Roger W. Shuy, Georgetown University The removal of Arturo: An immigration case nightmare 418 Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_FM 7/26/01 4:20 PM Page viii Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_Intro 7/26/01 4:18 PM Page 1 Introduction to the volume James E. Alatis Chair, GURT ‘99 This volume contains the published versions of papers from the 1999 Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, also known as the Round Table, or GURT, for short. The theme of the 1999 conference was “Language in Our Time: Bilingual Education and Official English, Ebonics and Standard English, Immigration and the Unz Initiative.” The year 1999 marked the return of the Round Table after a two-year hiatus, in time for its fiftieth anniversary celebration. Sponsored by Georgetown Uni- versity’s Center for International Language Programs and Research, GURT ’99 followed tradition by bringing together college and university professors, pro- gram administrators, researchers, government professional staff, elementary- and secondary-school teachers, authors, and students of languages and linguis- tics. Scholars and students from the United States and other countries—among them, Germany, Israel, Singapore, and the United Kingdom—met for days of lis- tening, discussing, and learning from each other. The conference was opened by the chair, Dr. James E. Alatis, the evening of Thursday, May 6, 1999, with a plenary panel featuring Stephen Krashen of the University of Southern California, Delia Pompa of the U.S. Department of Edu- cation, Rosalie Pedalino Porter of the Institute for Research in English Acquisi- tion and Development, and Eric Stone of the U.S. English Foundation. The rest of the conference featured twenty-four speakers over a two-day per- iod. Preconference events included a full-day program by members of the federal Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) and the Society of Federal Linguists on the following themes: “Lessons learned from a half-century of language learning, teaching, and testing in the U.S. government” and “The present cutting edge in U.S. government language programs.” There were also two concurrent tutorial sessions. One by John Rassias of Dartmouth College introduced the methodology of the Dartmouth Method to second-language learning and teaching. The other, by Stephen Krashen, presented an overview of Dr. Krashen’s GURT presentations since 1989. Selected papers from Round Table 1999 are presented in this volume. Content made available by Georgetown University Press, Digital Georgetown, and the Department of Languages and Linguistics. 2657_Georgetown_Intro 7/26/01 4:18 PM Page 2 Adults learning to read in a second script: What we’ve learned David L. Red Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State Introduction. What happens when people learn a new language written in a new script? What can educators do to make the process more efficient and re- warding for students? Why does anecdotal evidence suggest that learning to read a language written in a new script is such a hard process? Research in reading both first and second languages (L1 and L2) has concentrated on other areas, such as comprehension and strategy instruction, and has not addressed the basic issues of acquiring new scripts. As a result, the field lacks solid information on which to base pedagogy. At the Foreign Service Institute, we have been teaching languages in non- Roman writing systems to native English speakers for many years. Recently, we have been making concerted efforts to investigate the process by which adults learn to read languages written in these scripts and how students continue to make progress in reading these languages. This paper summarizes research literature pertinent to the acquisition of new writing systems, and presents findings from action research that I have conducted at the Foreign Service Institute. I address