The author conducted a questionnaire survey of language awareness in 358 students studying in Grades 8, 10, and 12 English classes in three rural and three urban schools in Nova Scotia. The main objectives of the study were to learn just how sensitive these students were to key aspects of language prior to any deliberate instruction in language awareness, to obtain new information about levels of natural language awareness as the basis for curriculum development, to uncover significant subject variables in relation to developing language awareness, and to clarify the theoretical distinction between “ordinary” and “critical” language awareness.