A study identified competencies needed by a bilingual teacher aide in an elementary school program. The methodology involved (1) use of task analysis in the form of a 341-item questionnaire, which was disseminated to 13l bilingual teacher aides in Arizona to determine both the difficulty and frequency of their tasks, (2) chi-square tests for significance of the bilingual teacher aides' background data and areas of task performance, (3) structured interviews with 40 bilingual teacher aides, (4) structured interviews with their 40 monolingual supervising teachers (conducted separately), and (5) a review of the literature. Results showed that the bilingual teacher aides are specifically unprepared to perform in the very areas for which they were employed. Courses are recommended and described on the basis of the skills which appeared to be most important to the performance of essential tasks within the bilingual classroom. A bibliography, intended as a guide for teacher aide trainers, is included to facilitate the development of appropriate materials. Recommendations for more effective screening and placement, and for state certification are offered. The research questionnaire is appended along with tables presenting chi-square analysis of the data. (Editor/NJ)