In this paper the author provides a brief overview of some of the ways in which recent sociolinguistic research is contributing to our knowledge of language teaching. The focus is on the American urban situation, especially as it relates to poor black children. One of the greatest deterrents to describing such situation has been our lack of tools and frameworks for studies to be made. The concepts noted in this paper--the linguistic continuum, the linguistic variable, and the linguistic situation--coupled with the development of quantitative measurement in linguistic analysis and a wider approach to fieldwork are leading to a realistic assessment of the social dimension of language. Certain pedagogical strategies are growing naturally out of this research, for it is obvious that a more detailed analysis of the feature being taught will suggest aspects to follow or avoid. A careful analysis of the focus and target forms suggests that foreign language teaching techniques be considered in bidialectal or biloquial education. The exact ways to apply these techniques to native language learning have not been found, and it appears clear that some of these techniques (such as repetition drills) may not be very useful. Suprisingly, we have learned that even the linguistic research that is being done suggests strategies for pedagogy, especially in the sequencing of lessons with these stigmatized features. (Author/JD)