The Australian Journal of Special Education An Application of the Distar Language 1 Programme 1 An application of the Distar Language 1 program in an infants E.S.L. setting: Comparison with a current E.S.L. program Dianna T Kenny The Australian Journal of Special Education, 4, 9 17. Programmes for teaching English as a second language (E.S.L.) to infant school aged migrant children in Australia have not been sys- tematically evaluated. With the exception of the Tate “Oral English” Course, no other programmes have been specifically designed for this very young age group, and programmes designed for use with primary aged children and even adults have been adapted and used by E.S.L. teachers in Infants’ Schools. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate an E.S.L. programme currently operating in some Infants’ Schools as well as to implement and evaluate the use of the Distar Language I programme in an E.S.L. Kindergarten group, and to compare outcomes from this programme with those obtained by the currently operating programme. Results indicate that the Distar Language 1 programme was more effective than the standard programme for all language structures other than vocabulary de- velopment and phonological discrimination. The superior outcome of the Distar programme may be due to either a programme effect, a behavioural teaching technology, or both. INTRODUCTION One of the most urgent single challenges facing schools is that of teaching English to immigrant chil- dren. This must be achieved as quickly as possible because English will be the children’s new medium of instruction for all purposes, and until they reach a fair level of competence in both the spoken and written language and can listen with understanding, they will be unable to participate fully in ordinary lessons and to profit from what the school has to offer. At least until the middle 1960s, there was little or no wide-spread attempt to investigate the extent of the situation or the problems and methods involved in the teaching of English to migrant children in Australian schools. (Smolicz & Wiseman, 1971). Since then, there have been attempts by state educa- tion departments to survey the situation and provide co-ordination, advice, inservice training and course materials. It was not until 1970 that the Immigration De- partment announced financial aid for the teaching of English to migrant children. This included pay- ment of salaries of teachers especially employed to teach migrants in special classes, training courses for teachers in the method of teaching English as a second language and the provision of equipment and teaching materials. These provisions have ex- panded rapidly over the past nine years but as yet, there do not appear to have been evaluations of their effectiveness. E.S.L. teaching is therefore still in its infancy. Three broad and basic areas have hitherto been under- emphasised in the attempts of education au- thorities to develop maximally effective English language programmes for migrant children entering Australian schools unable to speak English. These areas are: (1) The research literature pertaining to first and second language acquisition (2) The growing literature and research in behav- iour- change technology related to teaching and classroom management, and (3) Evaluation of programmes developed by the Education Department which are currently op- erating in Australian schools. The major aims of the present investigation arise from a consideration of these three areas. Specifi- cally, the study (1) assesses the research evidence pertaining to language acquisition and relates this evidence to the theoretical underpinnings reflected in programmes adopted by the Education De- partment. (2) examines empirically some of the assumptions underlying the audio-lingual habit theory of language acquisition, and (3) evaluates the effectiveness of a current edu- cational programme for teaching English to migrant children as well as to implement and evaluate a programme (Distar Language 1) which is based on behaviour change technol- ogy and advanced programming strategies. Theoretical and Empirical Background to the Study The situational method for teaching English as a second language (Pittman, 1967) to post-war adult migrants was adopted for use in E.S.L. settings in schools (Nicholls, 1970). The theoretical position on which this programme was based, the audio-lingual