Following Mozambique's independence from Portugal in 1975, and a prolonged civil war which ended in 1992, the ruling party FRELIMO has striven since 1993 to implement a bilingual educational system in the country. This paper addresses the reasons underlying the leaders' choice of this system and considers the problems involved in language planning…

Over a period of twenty years, Japanese language teaching has firmly established itself within primary school programs in most Australian States and Territories. Today the question is how to develop Japanese language education further in innovative ways suitable for learners' needs in the 21st century. In this report, the author examines the…

The relation of language of instruction and vocabulary to the English spelling of bilingual first graders receiving either English or Spanish literacy instruction and of monolinguals in English literacy instruction was explored. Only bilingual students in Spanish literacy instruction (SLI) exhibited Spanish-influenced spelling, indicating a…

Recently the author was working with a group of elementary bilingual teachers along a remote section of the Texas/Mexico border. She had been asked to facilitate the development of their social studies curriculum for their new dual-language program. She realized that although these teachers had experience working with culturally and linguistically…

In this study, a multi-stage mixed analysis was used to examine stories from 72 undergraduate teacher education students regarding their best and poorest K-5 teachers, alongside responses to Likert-format survey items. Participants expressed strong agreement with items derived from the literature concerning characteristics of effective teachers…

Taking a position that is unusual these days, New Jersey officials are promoting research that says bilingual education methods have an edge over English-only methods in teaching English-language learners to read. This article talks about the importance of bilingual education or a blended approach in the implementation of Reading First Program in…

This survey of third-grade teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in Arizona regarding school language and accountability policies--Proposition 203 (a voter-initiative that restricts the use of bilingual education programs in Arizona schools), the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and Arizona LEARNS (the state's high-stakes…

This survey of third-grade teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) in Arizona regarding school language and accountability policies--Proposition 203 (a voter-initiative that restricts the use of bilingual education programs in Arizona schools), the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and Arizona LEARNS (the state's high-stakes…

This article describes a literacy project with fourth-grade Latino students in a bilingual U.S. classroom and provides some insights on the importance of encouraging children's uses of two languages for communicating, reading, and writing in the classroom. The author discusses the following implications: (1) Teachers should encourage their…

This paper investigates how bilingualism is understood and practiced by adults and students in a dual-language elementary school. In this dual-language program, native English speakers and native Spanish speakers receive language and content instruction in both languages in linguistically integrated settings. I examine the participants' use of…

In this article, the author presents the bilingual books suggested by Pistu Downey, a bilingual teacher that teaches Spanish to kids ages three to six at the Bank Street College School for Children. Downey claims that reading bilingual books--books that contain words in languages other than English--gives children a very good opportunity of…

The report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996), the Kelowna Accord announced in 2005 (five-billion dollars) followed by its demise in 2006, and the settlement in 2006 for Aboriginal survivors of residential schools (1.9 billion dollars), are but some of the recent high-profile indicators of the challenges to Canada in dealing with…

This article contains a description of the Dual Proficiency (DP) program in an urban elementary school located in the heart of a large south-western city, as well as the teachers who designed and now implement DP, and the immigrant community participating by choice in DP. We write from a context where, ironically, the number of English language…

The "Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition" ("BCIRC") program, an adaptation of the "Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition" ("CIRC") program, was designed to help Spanish-speaking students succeed in reading Spanish and then making a successful transition to English reading. In…

This report summarizes Austin ISD's bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) program for students during the 2006-2007 school year. The school district served 13,162 students in a bilingual program, 5,280 students in an ESL program, and 822 students whose parents refused bilingual or ESL programming. Most (77%) students served were in…