The second edition of this book provides an introduction of practical value to questions of bilingualism for parents and teachers. The style of the book is to pose questions that people most often ask about raising bilingual children. Straightforward answers follow, written in direct, plain English. Ideas and perceptions have been extended and enriched in this edition, and there has been elaboration and refinement in particular answers such as: the advantages of bilingualism; language mixing; trilingualism; and identity problems.
Continuing the case for free voluntary reading set out in the book's 1993 first edition, this new, updated, and much-looked-for second edition explores new research done on the topic in the last 10 years as well as looking anew at some of the original research reviewed. Krashen also explores research surrounding the role of school and public libraries and the research indicating the necessity of a print-rich environment that provides light reading (comics, teen romances, magazines) as well as the best in literature to assist in educating children to read with understanding and in second language acquisition.
This revised edition of the classic treatment of its subject presents an outline of the grammar of modern English in the framework of systemic-functional linguistic theory and serves as an introduction to functional theory in general, which can be used for describing any language in its own terms. The description of English presented here has been widely used in a number of applied linguistics contexts, particularly artificial intelligence and language education, both second language and mother tongue, but also in literary stylistics and other fields requiring a rich interpretation of the text.
