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Children who have sensory, cognitive or oromotor deficits, or come from a bilingual-speaking background are currently excluded from the diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI). Emerging evidence, however, suggests that at least 7% of all children have language learning difficulties, irrespective of other diagnoses or language learning background. The aim of this study was to investigate the language abilities of an adolescent boy with pre-lingual, severe-profound hearing loss who comes from a non-English-speaking background. This student's performance on standardized tests is described and qualitative language analyses examine his impairment. His abilities are compared with that of a matched control. The language difficulty identified could not be attributed to either hearing impairment or non-English-speaking background. The student's data suggest the need to expand the concept of SLI to include children with other impairments and from different language backgrounds in order to provide equity of support services and access to the classroom curriculum. (Contains 5 tables and 1 note.)

We examined developing bilinguals' use of animacy and word order cues during sentence interpretation tasks administered in each of their languages. Participants were 6- to 8-year-old children who learned Vietnamese as a first language and English as a second language (n = 23). Participants listened to simple sentences and identified the agent or "doer" of the action. English-only peers (n = 23) served as a comparison group. Results indicated that the bilingual group relied more on animacy than the English-only group when interpreting sentences in English and that the bilingual group used a blending or "amalgamation" of cues to interpret English and Vietnamese sentences. Significant within-group variation in cue preference was investigated as a function of age and proficiency in the first language and second language.

For bilinguals born in an English-speaking country or who arrive at a young age, English (L2) often becomes their dominant language by adulthood. This study examines whether such adult bilinguals show equivalent performance to monolingual English native speakers on three English auditory processing tasks: phonemic awareness, spelling-to-dictation and auditory comprehension. The study contrasts three bilingual language groups differing in their L1: morphosyllabic/logographic L1 (Cantonese), morphosyllabic/alphabetic (Vietnamese) L1 and non-morphosyllabic/alphabetic L1 (Other). Particularly on the tasks that involved nonwords, the morphosyllabic bilingual groups performed most poorly, suggesting an effect of L1 phonological structure on English processing despite L1 having become subordinate to L2. The results indicate that even when a bilingual is born, raised and educated in their L2 environment, native equivalence in L2 is not assured.

This study examines heritage-language (HL) experience and identity of 12 adults of mixed-heritage backgrounds through in-depth autobiographical interviews. Each participant has an English-speaking American parent and an HL (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, or Vietnamese)-speaking immigrant parent. The interviews explored each participant's experience in the HL while growing up, self-claimed proficiency in the HL, attitudes toward the HL, and self- and other-perceived identities. The findings suggest that HL proficiencies varied widely, tending to correspond with the extent of the participants' interaction in that language. Three participants had extensive HL experience while 9 had limited HL exposure. These 9 mainly attributed their lack of HL proficiency to their parents' and/or their own reluctance to use the HL, which arose from various societal and personal pressures to shift to English. This article discusses the implications of these findings on heritage-language education. (Contains 1 table.)

The article explores the ways "uneven geographical development" conditions and is conditioned by local placemaking practices. Guided by David Harvey's work along with Henri Lefebvre's three dimensions of spatial production--spatial practices, representations of space, and spaces of representation or the "spatial imaginary"--I look at the ways a diasporic community of Vietnamese teachers, students, and parents negotiate heritage language and culture within an urban public elementary school. I hope to illustrate how spatial production works on individuals in ways that produce both docile and self-determining bodies negotiating tensions between unity and difference. I argue that in confining our understanding of the spatial to static backdrops, we limit our abilities to imagine spaces of difference, geographies of desire, places of radical openness and possibility, and third spaces of political opportunity. (Contains 1 note.)

Students learning foreign languages in the United States generally have little exposure to the target language outside the classroom. Web-based technology can facilitate language learning in context by offering easily accessible, authentic materials. This paper introduces MIMEA (Multimedia Interactive Modules for Education and Assessment), an online resource for practicing language skills in cultural contexts, which is available in Arabic, Chinese, German, Korean, Russian, and Vietnamese. The development and pedagogical goals of Arabic, Chinese, German, and Korean MIMEA are described and examples of how MIMEA can be used by language learners and teachers in the United States are offered. In addition, results from a research study with learners of Arabic, German, and Korean are discussed that investigated users' perceptions of the program in four categories: (a) effectiveness in specific language skill areas; (b) relevance for users' language study; (c) effects on user confidence, interest, and motivation for studying the target language; and (d) effects of technology on language and culture learning. Results indicated high ratings for receptive skills, a strong relevance for users' present and future language study, as well as positive effects on language learning and use of technology. (Contains 6 figures.)

The authors offer concrete ideas for supporting dual language learners in early childhood classrooms and strategies for enhancing children's comprehension of the new language. Each author presents practical ideas based on personal experiences as educators of children whose home language is not English. To provide quality education for all children, staff must commit to and set the stage for bilingualism in the classroom and be aware of the benefits for all children.

The paper offers a retrospective evaluation of recent evaluative studies of bilingual programs in the Australian state of Victoria, in an attempt to determine how successfully the evaluation process met the dual criteria of external accountability and development. The programs in question were located in primary or secondary government schools and involved partial immersion in a heritage language. Data for the paper are drawn from the following: (a) the consultant's recollections of the evaluation context and process, and (b) the evaluative reports relating to three different programs (Vietnamese-English, Chinese-English and Arabic-English respectively). In hindsight it appears that the effectiveness of each evaluation may have depended in part on the degree of fit between the school and the consultant's views about the function of the evaluation initiative, as well as on her ability to communicate findings in terms which were both academically defensible and meaningful for teachers and program administrators. While the task of bridging the gap between the accountability and ameliorative functions of each evaluation was challenging for all parties (and possibly exacerbated by linguistic and cultural divides), it is argued that the former is not necessarily at the expense of the latter. The requirement that outcomes be reported objectively to an external stakeholder can, if appropriately handled, generate insights among program participants which can be harnessed for program improvement. The paper concludes with an account of the lessons learned from the evaluations, in the hope that these will help evaluation consultants in forging more productive relationships and better communications with program participants. (Contains 1 note.)

Vietnamese, like other immigrant languages, experiences decline in various forms from the time that its speakers first arrive in the US, a process that gathers pace in the second generation, and often leads to a near-complete loss of the language in the third generation. The article deals with the ways in which Vietnamese-Americans have attempted to keep their language alive using Vietnamese language schools and a variety of community initiatives. The benefits of such efforts to maintain the heritage language and its culture are discussed, mostly from the point of view of the Vietnamese community but also in a national perspective in which heritage languages are considered as a linguistic and cultural resource. New pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Vietnamese and also the growing movement to have the language taught in universities are discussed.

This study investigates factors that affect the accuracy of tone production by American students of Vietnamese as a second language (L2). Nine hypotheses are examined, each of which isolates a factor expected to affect production accuracy: (a) task type, (b) the position of a tone in a clause, (c) discourse distance between a model provided by a native speaker and the learner's utterance, (d) markedness relationships of the tones, (e) emphasis, (f) the preceding and following tones in the string, (g) voicing of the initial consonant, (h) postvocalic elements in the syllable, and (i) vowel height. The findings show that the patterns of tone production by the American learners of Vietnamese are influenced by universal mechanisms of phonetics and phonology, first language structures, and L2-specific rules. The results also provide a framework for determining the difficulty of tones in different environments. (Contains 3 tables, 3 figures and 18 notes.)

In this study I investigate the impact of different characteristics of the L2 speech signal on the intelligibility of L2 speakers of English to native listeners. Three native listeners were observed and questioned as they orthographically transcribed utterances taken from connected conversational speech produced by three L2 speakers from different L1 backgrounds (Korean, Mandarin, and Vietnamese). Where the listeners experienced difficulty in identifying the speaker's intended words, the features of the speech signal they relied on were identified, and links were made between the difficulties they experienced and the way in which the features in question varied from standard English phonology. Regardless of the speaker they were listening to, when attempting to identify the speaker's intended words, all three listeners relied heavily and consistently on the speaker's syllable stress pattern (the number and pattern of strong and weak syllables), and more consistently on segments in strong syllables than those in weak syllables. Both non-standard syllable stress patterns and non-standard segments misled them into wrongly identifying a speaker's intended words, but for all three speakers, it was non-standard segments in strong syllables that misled those most often. These findings have implications for L2 listeners wanting to improve their English listening skills, as well as for L2 speakers wanting to improve their intelligibility. (Contains 4 figures.)

This paper examines the reading experiences, strategies, and curriculum preferences of university-level heritage language students. One hundred and twenty eight students enrolled in four different heritage language programs at UCLA--Korean, Russian, Thai, and Vietnamese--completed a survey about their exposure to print, early and current reading experiences, strategy use, learning goals, and preferences. The survey revealed that the majority of the students were interested in achieving university-level academic reading proficiency, yet students reported spending little time reading in their HL despite the availability of print in many of their homes. This might be explained by the fact that students reported not transferring skills from English to the HL and that they perceived themselves to be slow readers. Moreover, most HL students expressed that their reason for learning the HL was to maintain their cultural identity and thus would like to read texts embedded with cultural and historical information in the HL classroom. The survey results underscore the importance of sustaining students' motivation in HL literacy courses by selecting appropriate materials that are connected to students' goals for learning the HL, and providing explicit instruction in reading skills and strategies in both English and the HL. Results of this study will be of particular use to HL curriculum planners and material developers. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

While Government commitments to supporting instruction in languages other than English have largely been honoured, bilingual education as a form of learning has not been widespread. Acknowledging the benefits of learning a language other than English, the most recent Australian national languages policy statement nonetheless makes no mention of bilingual education as a possible mechanism by which this or other policy goals might be achieved. As such, those primary schools offering bilingual learning opportunities for students from immigrant and refugee backgrounds operate in a sociopolitical and educational climate that offers little support for such pedagogical initiatives. The result is that these schools--even those with long-established traditions of offering bilingual education--need to remain focused on the theory-informed pedagogical principles that underpin these programs. This is essential in order that these bilingual education programs are rigorously defended in a national context that frequently undervalues linguistic and cultural diversity, and marginalises ESL issues. This article reports on one primary school setting and the perspectives students, parents, and staff have articulated recently in relation to bilingual education.

There has been little or no research on Vietnamese phonological development, let alone on phonological disorders of Vietnamese-speaking children. The goal of this study is to evaluate the sound systems of monolingual Vietnamese-speaking children with phonological impairment. Independent and relational analyses of four children (ages 4;4 to 5;5) are presented in terms of error patterns, dialectal patterns, phonotactic constraints, and phonetic and phonemic inventories. The characteristics of these children's sound systems are compared to studies of phonological acquisition of other languages, in order to identify characteristics that may be universal versus those that may be language-specific in nature. (Contains 6 tables.)

The present study examines the role of a Vietnamese heritage language school in cross-cultural adaptation, as operationalised by the confluence of two independent variables, language competence and integrated cultural identity. To characterise the students' language competencies and degree of integrated cultural identities, interview questionnaires of virtually a complete census of students in the school were analysed via descriptive statistics. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to determine relations between each independent variable and demographic factors (such as age at arrival in the USA and family milieu) and to determine relations between each independent variable and school factors (such as pattern of attendance and class participation). The findings suggest the heritage school experience was related to components of Vietnamese language competency but had little impact on integrated cultural identity. Age at arrival in the USA and family milieu played a more significant role in the cross-cultural adaptation process.

The project described in this paper investigated the needs and concerns identified by parents from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as their children started school in Sydney, Australia. Six groups of parents from Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Samoan, Turkish and Vietnamese language backgrounds were interviewed about what was important for them to know and/or do as their children started school. In particular, parents were asked to identify information which would have been helpful for them, and that should be available to parents with children starting school. The data obtained were compared with data derived from Australian parents whose first language is English. The results indicate that there are some issues which seem to be of concern to most parents, regardless of their cultural or language background, such as parents' desire for children to be happy and confident at school, as well as some more specific issues for some groups. (Contains 4 tables.)

This study investigates cognitive, cultural, and contextual factors that influence HIV-related risk behaviors among Asian women who engage in sex work at massage parlors in San Francisco. Focus groups and qualitative interviews were conducted for Vietnamese and Thai masseuses and massage parlor owners/managers. Economic pressure as well as subjective evaluation of customers for the risk of HIV/STD infection increase unprotected sexual behaviors among Asian masseuses. Massage parlor owners/managers do not establish a clear policy for condom use at their parlors. Consequently, male customers often manipulate their intention not to use a condom while negotiating with masseuses. HIV/STD prevention intervention programs should address specific risks and needs for Asian masseuses, owners/managers, and male customers in order to promote health and well being among Asian masseuses who have been neglected by public health and social services.

This paper compares the initial state of second language acquisition (L2A) and third language acquisition (L3A) from the generative linguistics perspective. We examine the acquisition of the Determiner Phrase (DP) by two groups of beginning French learners: an L2 group (native speakers of Vietnamese who do not speak any English) and an L3 group (native speakers of Cantonese who are also proficient L2 English users). Two current competing models in the field of theoretical second language acquisition, namely Full Transfer Full Access (FTFA) and the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis (FFFH) are compared and their extension to L3A evaluated. Results point to full transfer of L1 in the L2 initial state and partial transfer of L2 in the L3 initial state. The L3 group performed significantly better than the L2 group on most of the properties tested. We suggest that these findings are not totally consistent with either FTFA or FFFH, but argue that they crucially demonstrate that L3A is not simply another case of L2A because transfer in L3A does not necessarily always come from L1. [The research reported in this article is a revised version of part of the author's Ph.D. dissertation completed at the Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, which was supported by grants from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRCC] (to Lydia White & Nigel Duffield) and Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research [FCAR] (to Lydia White et al.) as well as by a McGill Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research Internal Social Sciences and Humanities Thesis Research Grant to the author.]

This study examines the acquisition of English syllable codas by two native speakers of Vietnamese. Data were collected at three intervals over 1 year. Results indicate that a developmental sequence may exist and that this sequence may not be linear, with some longer (i.e., two and three member) codas emerging before some singleton codas. Furthermore, it was found that production type (e.g., with epenthesis or feature change) differed significantly by coda type and was indicative of acquisition processes. Finally, linguistic environment (preceding and following) and grammatical conditioning were found to significantly affect coda production and development. (Contains 1 footnote.)

This paper compares two sets of data from the same year, 2001--the numbers of students taking languages other than English at primary and secondary level, and census statistics for the home use of languages other than English. The data draws attention to languages that are taught principally in day schools and those taken mainly in after hours programs, and to variation between States and between education systems. While it is acknowledged that the strong presence of a language in the community is not the only reason for offering it in schools, the paper demonstrates that some important international languages are now among the major community languages and that some of them are marginal in the mainstream education systems in Australia. The presence of large numbers of speakers will facilitate the utilization of community resources in language teaching. Consideration needs to be given especially to Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Spanish, community languages with increasing numbers, the first two especially among the young. (Contains 10 tables and 5 notes.)

Teaching Tolerance is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance in the online release of its interdisciplinary curriculum, "Vietnamese Americans: Lessons in American History." The curriculum guide-- complete with timelines, maps and primary sources--offers eight lesson plans, organized around important thematic issues pertinent not just to Vietnamese Americans, but to all Americans. Themes include Immigrants and Refugees, Hate Crimes, Human Rights and Freedom of Speech. This excerpt offers Lesson 3: Voice and Identity, which is appropriate for use with students in grades 8-12. This lesson is designed for students of all backgrounds to explore the difficulties of self-expression and self-identity. Students will learn how an individual's identity can be shaped by others and how it can be influenced by his or her various social characteristics. The activity supports the national social studies standards, Strand IV: Individual Development and Identity.

This paper presents a study that attributes verb serialization in the interlanguage of Vietnamese-speaking ESL learners to language transfer and, furthermore, puts forward the view that such transfer bears a resemblance to substrate influence in creoles with serial verb constructions (SVCs). In a task that elicited English causatives through pictures representing the causation of events, a subset of the Vietnamese-speaking participants in this study produced a number of serial-type constructions that reflected lexicosemantic aspects of causative SVCs in Vietnamese. Speakers of Hindi-Urdu, a nonserializing language used for comparative purposes, did not produce any equivalents. Additionally, serial-type constructions with second verbs (V2s) representing a result (e.g., "cook butter melt") predominated at lower levels of lexical proficiency, whereas serials with "make" and a result (e.g., "make broken") were more evenly distributed across proficiency levels. One inference based on the results is that certain serials are eliminated early in the acquisition process through positive evidence obtained via English input, whereas others continue to appear beyond the elementary level because of misleadingly similar constructions in the input. A comparison of the proficiency-based transfer of "cook butter melt" serials in this study and the inferred transfer of SVCs in creolization suggests that, whereas transfer processes in the two contexts are congruent in certain ways (often resulting from the exigencies of communication, limited access to the TL, and linguistic convergence), the processes diverge because of differences in target norms and input conditions. The latter two factors provide one explanation for why SVC-related transfer effects were limited to a subgroup of Vietnamese-speaking participants in this study.

This article presents a case study of a Vietnamese interpreter/health service worker working for a Head Start center. It describes the different role expectations of the various participants and the conflict that occurred because of these differences. Discussion examines the following cultural constructs: interpreter roles; independence/interdependence; power/distance; and cultural perspectives about time. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

Examines key features of Vietnamese refugees' household formation, reviewing sociohistorical data on household formation and structure in southern Vietnam during the period of the Republic, comparing these data with more recent data on southern and northern Vietnam, and considering U.S. Vietnamese refugee households based on the Office of Refugee Resettlement's 1999 Annual Survey of Refugees. (Contains references.) (SM)

Examined the effect of cross-cultural awareness training and explicit linguistic instruction on attitudes towards and comprehension of foreign-accented speech in three groups of students. Listening comprehension passages read in Vietnamese-accented speech before and after an 8-week instruction period revealed no cross-group differences. Attitude questionnaires indicated increased empathy for immigrants. (Author/VWL)

Elementary and middle school children in California who speak Vietnamese as a first language reported high levels of oral competence in Vietnamese and a desire to maintain Vietnamese language and culture. There was no evidence that the development of the first language was a barrier to second language acquisition. (Author/VWL)

A survey of 43 Vietnamese Americans found respondents who had become more acculturated had greater hope for individuals with disabilities than first generation immigrants. Both groups embraced the practice of seeking services for a child with disability and were strongly predisposed to accept augmentative and alternative communication practices. (Contains references.) (CR)

Summarizes the results of a multidimensional study of a content-based bilingual education program piloted in a suburban high school in Melbourne, Australia in which specialist subjects taught in Vietnamese and Chinese were offered to Grades 9 and 10 students who were optionally enrolled in the Chinese-English or Vietnamese-English stream. Incorporated a coordinated action research methodology. (Author/VWL)

Reports the findings of a study in which transfer of verb properties was investigated via syntactic data elicited from second language learners. The performance of Hindi-Urdu speakers on tests of English causatives was compared with that of Vietnamese speakers, because there are five significant differences between causativization patterns in Hindi-Urdu and Vietnamese. (Author/VWL)

Native Spanish early and late acquirers of English and Vietnamese early and child acquirers of English made grammaticality judgments of sentences in their second language. Native acquirers of English were not distinguishable from native English speakers, whereas native Spanish late acquirers had difficulty with all aspects of the grammar tested except word order. (Author/VWL)