This paper discusses Texas Examinations of Educator Standards Program Languages Other Than English -- Spanish exam (TExES LOTE - Spanish) and its potential bias, particularly against teacher candidates with Spanish as a heritage language (HL) background. In Texas, most teacher candidates, or college students of Spanish preparing for secondary…

Digital math assessments with bilingual accommodations allow multilingual learners to use their entire linguistic repertoire to showcase their knowledge and skills. The bilingual accommodations, which include tools like language translation and audio prompts in both English and Spanish, are designed to be adaptable, giving multilingual learners…

Background: The number of English learner (EL) students has been steadily increasing within the United States and currently includes more than 5M students. The National Education Association (2020) estimated that by 2025, nearly 25% of all learners will be EL students. Curricula, interventions, and assessments for both diagnostic and academic…

As the population of emergent bilingual students in the United States continues to grow, it has become increasingly important to ensure that content area instruction is linguistically and culturally inclusive and accessible. Longitudinal survey and state mathematics assessment data were used to examine how the use of students' home language in the…

This is a qualitative case study framed by a sociosemiotic theoretical framework to explore science and language instruction with three Emergent Bilinguals (EBs) in sixth grade. The study details the modeling and explanatory processes used by EBs to mediate science learning through evidence-based argumentation. A thematic analysis of students'…

This study explores the linguistic violence of bilingual Latina/o/x adolescents in school settings in Southcentral Texas. In addition, the paper examines how these students see themselves as proficient Spanish/English bilinguals. In doing so, the author uses a language ideologies framework coupled with Anthropolitical linguistics. Within this…

This study explores teachers' use of Spanish in sixth-grade bilingual science classrooms at an urban middle school in Texas. We used a case study approach to study how two Spanish-English bilingual teachers utilized Spanish during instruction in a unit on space exploration and their beliefs on Spanish use in English-dominant science classrooms.…

This case study examined second language (L2) instructors' use of technology in high school and junior high Spanish classrooms in the state of Texas. Specifically, this work sought to investigate the kinds of technologies teachers employ in their practice and how they apply them in the classroom, and what personal and institutional factors…

This report summarizes the academic performance of students in the AISD secondary dual language program during 2019-2020. Topics include program and student characteristics, performance on the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS), enrollment in advanced placement (AP) courses and performance on AP exams. Due to the…

The two-way immersion dual language education program design includes the use of language labels to identify students as either the English speaker or the speaker of a language other than English. This paper examines four focal student and two teacher interviews to consider the ways in which the idea of a 'language expert' transpired during…

This narrative inquiry highlights the experiences of three high school students labeled Long-term English learners (LTEL) in a North Texas high school. This narrative inquiry study uses semi-structured interviews to restory the students' lives, emphasizing the emergent themes of family (the strongest pillar) and the language of the home (Spanish).…

We advance a tripartite framework of language use to encompass language skills, the practice of language skills, and the subjective experiences associated with language use among Mexican-origin adolescents who function as language brokers by translating and interpreting for their English-limited parents. Using data collected over 2 waves from a…

This study examined levels of English proficiency before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among English learner students in grades 3-12 in Texas. In 2020-2021, nearly 750,000 students in grades 3-12--approximately one in five Texas students--were English learner students. In accordance with Texas state law and the Every Student Succeeds Act,…

Ideologies regarding what is "good" teaching undergird common teaching practices and pedagogical decisions, which may support and/or run counter to the broader policy environment in which they occur (Gibson, 1998). Drawing from a six-month ethnography of 10th-grade newcomer students from Mexico and their teachers in a Central Texas…

Dual language programs are poised to produce bilingual/biliterate teacher candidates to alleviate bilingual educator shortages. Therefore, in search for ways to support the growing number of Spanish/English dual language programs in Texas, the authors of this paper analyzed the variations of Spanish language and proficiency levels of 9th grade…