This study describes research used for supporting a validity argument for a new Spanish Listening Exam, whose scores are intended to place examinees into appropriate levels of university Spanish classes. This study contributes to the field of argument-based approaches to language assessment by implementing Bachman's (2005) assessment use argument…

In this study, we explored whether the contribution of working memory (WM) to children's (N = 471) 2nd language (L2) reading and language acquisition was best accounted for by processing efficiency at a phonological level and/or by executive processes independent of phonological processing. Elementary school children (Grades 1, 2, & 3) whose…

This study focuses on how a Chicana/Latina professor contributed to the development of social consciousness with Spanish bilingual credential candidates in a Teacher Education Multiple Subject Credential Program, in California, USA. As a teacher educator, my goals were to look deeply at my teaching approach and to evaluate what the students and I…

To date, research on immigrant Latino students has neglected to fully explore the school experiences of immigrants from Oaxaca, a community that has historically experienced economic, political, social, and cultural oppression in Mexico and now in the United States. Drawing from formal and informal interviews and observations, I examine the high…

This study examined the added value of a vocabulary plus phonological awareness (vocab+) intervention against a phonological awareness (PA only) intervention only. The vocabulary intervention built networks among words through attention to morphological and semantic relationships. This supplementary classroom instruction augmented existing…

The Fresno (California) Unified School District has one of the highest poverty levels in the nation. The district is made up of approximately 84% Hispanic students, and 70% of their parents speak only Spanish in the home. Many students have difficulty passing the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), which is required to receive a…

Last year, 15 students in the Montpelier (Vermont) High School's Advanced Placement Spanish class paid class-time visits every week to a nearby dairy farm. They interacted with the Mexican laborers by conversing with them in Spanish, having picnics together, and playing cards and soccer. As the students advanced their Spanish verbal skills, they…

There are numerous reasons why schools struggle to provide English-language learners (ELLs) with additive literacy instruction. One reason for this is the lack of available trained bilingual teachers, mainstream teachers who have not received adequate training on how to teach ELLs, and the current political climate that appears to support an…

California's Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 established transitional kindergarten (TK), the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for students affected by the change in the birthdate cutoff for entry into kindergarten from December 2 to September 1. This fifth short report in a series highlighting findings from the Study of…

This article first sets the context by recalling a study conducted by Alamillo (2004) at a California elementary school. That study examined culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy in the classroom through the use of Chicano children's literature. Both the text and the illustrations found in recent publications and the role they played…

Achievement motivation is something that all members of the school community want to support in students, however few may recognize that it is influenced by culture. The very meaning of "achievement" is culturally variable, and the motives that students have for achieving may be quite different, depending upon their cultural background.…

This article presents cases of three young people who represent the "New Mainstream" of the 21st-century classroom as they engaged in a year-long research and writing project. Focal students were classmates who represented the linguistic and cultural diversity of today's New Mainstream: a transnational Mexican-origin bilingual female, an…

This article presents the outcomes of a biliteracy project designed, following an action-learning methodology, to supplement the district-mandated literacy programs with afterschool reading cooperatives where 100 families whose children were enrolled in an elementary school located in the Imperial Valley, California, and teachers dialogically read…

In 2007, for the first time in Denver radio history, a Spanish-language station finished atop the Arbitron ratings. Earlier this year, KXPK-FM, known as "La Tricolor," ranked first among 18- to 49-year-olds and 25- to 54-year-olds, considered to be radio's two most-coveted listener groups. And two years ago, industry giant Clear Channel…

This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase Magica (The Magic Class), a computer-based, after-school bilingual program for Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano-a…