DOCUMENT RESUME AUTHOR Noss, Richard B
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 420 989 FL 024 714 AUTHOR Noss, Richard B.; Gonzalez, Andrew, Ed.; Sibayan, Bonifacio P , Ed TITLE Language in Schools. Monograph No. 41. INSTITUTION Linguistic Society of the Philippines, Manila. PUB DATE 1996-00-00 NOTE 501p. PUB TYPE Books (010) Reports Research (143) EDRS PRICE MF02/PC21 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Bilingual Education; *Classroom Communication; Classroom Techniques; Communicative Competence (Languages); Curriculum Design; Elementary Secondary Education; Foreign Countries; Language Acquisition; *Language of Instruction; Language Research; *Language Role; Language Tests; *Language Variation; Linguistic Theory; Reading Skills; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Study Skills; Teaching Methods; Testing; Writing Skills ABSTRACT This monograph attempts to integrate experience and research findings in several related disciplines and bring them to bear on the problem of how to make language programs schools simultaneously accommodate the needs of both the language curriculum and the general curriculum. It addresses four issues:(1) how specific languages, in all their varieties, are typically used to convey general information through various r;poken and written channels to children in schools, and how they are susceptible to change;(2) how students' language proficiency, as indilriduals and as groups, affect acquisition of other knowledge and skills, and vice versa, in a typical school;(3) options available to language specialists in relating the monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual curriculum to language syllabi, tests, and instructional sequences in language courses; and (4)in cases where choice of language media and language subjects has not ben dictated by educational policy, or is otherwise subject to change, what the most important considerations are in determining the kind of language to be used for each type and level of instruction, in both language and general curriculum. (MSE) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research andImprovement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND CENTER (ERIC) DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS 0'..This document has been reproducedas BEEN GRANTED BY received from the person ororganization originating it Minor changes have been madeto y.\ improve reproduction quality Points of view or opinions stated in this TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES document do not necessarilyrepresent INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) official OERI position or policy I `Os J 2 Wit& Me compliment& of 2tatliett anthem Qatvzatez,gse De La Salle University 2401 Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines Tel. No. 504611 3 Richard B. Noss LANGUAGE IN SCHOOLS Edited by Andrew Gonzalez, FSC Bonifacio P. Sibayan Manila Linguistic Society of the Philippines Monograph Series No. 41 4 ,r, A 5 FOREWORD Richard (Dick) B. Noss was born on September 23, 1923 in Sendai, Japan, the son of missionary parents. He grew up and was educated in the Eastern United States: B.A. cum laude, English, 1943, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina; Ph.D., Linguistics, 1954, Yale University. After receiving his B.A. degree he spent three years in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as Japanese translator. He was an instructor (Russian language) at Yale University for three years (1952-55). Noss worked ten years as a linguistic scientist in the ForeignServiceInstitute,DepartmentofState, Washington, D.C., four years in the Department of Far Eastern Languages (1955-59), and six year (1961-67) in the Department of East Asian Languages, where he was head in 1966-67. As a linguistic scholar in East Asian languages, especially in the Thai language, he spent twenty-one years of his professional life as a linguist and language planner in Southeast Asia, as consultant and adviser and in teaching and/or research and writing in the following countries: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia (Kampuchea, Khmer Republic), Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, India, Japan and Burma. Noss was consultant to the Ford Foundation on Language Issues in Southeast Asia Project and other projects. In the summer of 1975, he taught sociolinguistics and language planning at the Ford Foundation-sponsored Linguistic Institute held at the Philippine Normal College, Manila. Noss had a number of what he called 'non-teaching experiences', which actually were major contributions to the area of language planning and teaching. He helped develop the first version of the Foreign Service Language Proficiency Test (oral interview) which is now recognized as a major innovation in language testing.He helped establish a number of institutions and practices in Southeast Asia such as the first national English Language 6 Center in Thailand, which became the model for what is now the Chulalongkorn University Language Institute;in Malaysia the country's first Language Unit, now absorbed into the Curriculum Development Centre; and it was upon his recommendation that language planning was the theme of the Regional Language Centre, Singapore (for the years 1982-86) and as a required academic coursefor students of applied linguistics. It was while he was a Specialist in Applied Linguistics and Language Planning and Chairman, Research and Development Committee, at the Southeast ASian Ministers Education Organization (SEAMEO) Regional Language Centre, Singapore, where he spent six years (1978-84), that Filipino teachers and students in English language teaching came in contact with Noss and his wife Elaine. He wrote a number of books, monographs, articles and reviews on English, Asian languages, theoretical and applied linguistics and language planning. The last to be published before he left Singapore to live in Washington, D.C. in 1984 was An Overview of Language Issuesin Southeast Asia 1950-1980 (with Andrew Gonialez, FSC, Amran Halim and Angkab Palakornkul), Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984. He was busy working on Languages for the Modern World which appears to be a revised version of an earlier manuscript Language in Schools when he died of cancer on February 18, 1989. After Noss passed away, his friends all over the world wanted to publish a memorial volume to honor him posthumously. Instead of a memorial Festschrift, we offered to edit and publigh his last work, a work he had finalized at the time of his death. The work is especially suitable to be a final work as it summarizes his insights and experiences after a lifetime of work with language in the schools. His widow Elaine has kindly consented to having this volume published and provided us with the photograph and the list of his publications as well as the two versions of the work. The volume isbeing offered as part of the monograph series (number 41) of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines and copies are available upon request at the '7 Linguistic Society of the Philippines office at De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines. We hope that this volume will be read by all students of language and education to profit from the insights of a first-rate mind gifted with an ability in languages, both learning them and teaching them, with realistic common sense and uncommon insight, which was the spirit he brought to all his work in the field of language teaching and the sociology of language. Manila, Philippines Andrew Gonzalez, FSC and October 1996 Bonifacio P. Sibayan LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF RICHARD B. NOSS 1964 Thai reference grammar. Washington: Foreign Service Institute. 1966 (with Im Proum)). Cambodian basic course 1. Washington: FSI 1966 The treatment of */r/ in two modern Khmer dialects. Studies in Comparative Austroasiatic Linguistics, Norman H. Zide, ed. The Hague: Mouton. 1967 Language policy. Higher Education in Southeast Asia 3.2. Howard Hayden, ed. Paris: UNESCO/TAU. 1968 Review of Mary R. Haas, Thia-English students dictionary. Tokyo: Orient West. 1970 Paired adjectives in Cambodian.Journal of the Siam Society 58.1. 1971 Language and politics in Southeast Asia. Languages Sciences 16. 1971 Review of Anthony et al, Foundations of Thai. JSS 68.1. 1972 (withDavid E. Eskey). English nominalizations:Writing drills.Bangkok: Longman/Thai Wattana Panich. 1972 The ungrounded transformer. Language Sciences 23. 1972 The verb "have": American and British usage. English Teaching Forum, 10.6. 1972 English causative constructions:what can a small sample of informants tell us?Bulletin of the English Language Center 11.2. 1972 Rhythm inThai. TaiPhonetics and Phonology, Harris and Noss, eds.Bangkok: CIEL. 1973 Contextualandbackgroundcluesin communication. Bulletin of the English Language Center 3.1. 1974 Review of W.E. Rutherford, Modern English: A Textbook for Foreign Students. PASAA 4.1. (Bangkok). 1975 How usefularecitation formsinthe synchronic analysis of Thai phonology? Studies in Tai Linguistics in Honor of William J. Gedney,Harris and Chamberlain, eds. Bangkok: CIEL. 1976 (with Theodore S. Rodgers). Does English for special purposes imply a new kind of language syllabus? Curriculum Development and Syllabus Design for English Teaching, RELC Anthology Series 3. Geoffrey H. Wilson, ed. Singapore: Singapore University Press. 1979 Some Southeast Asian priorities in applied linguistics.Applications of Linguistics to Language Teaching, RELC Anthology Series 6. Jack C. Richards, ed. Singapore:Singapore