In most industrialized countries, especially in urban areas with a heavy concentration of cultural minorities, teaching a standard second language to schoolchildren is a misleading concept and an ambiguous enterprise. In a country that fosters official unilingualism, schoolchildren have to learn a standard second language as if it were a first language. Inserted in a group forcing the use of the officially sanctioned language as the norm for communication, schoolchildren are exposed to teaching techniques and learning strategies designed by first-language teachers for first-language teaching and learning, with teaching material designed for first-language courses and curriculum. On the other hand, native-language instruction in schools where over 60 percent of the students speak a dialect of a second language poses many problems. This unique teaching situation requires an approach that combines at least three elements: instructional materials; instructional procedures; and operational, not only philosophical or political, objectives. An English abstract accompanies this paper. (Author/MSE)