This article documents an extended Mexican family's social practices surrounding literacy as they engage with bilingual children's literature in a unique context that draws from both home and school without the pressures of curriculum mandates. The research is situated within the southeastern United States where English-dominant practices permeate…

In this article, Fairbanks, Crooks, and Ariail followed Esme Martinez, a Spanish-speaking Latina, from the sixth grade to the eleventh grade, focusing on her perspectives of schooling and her shifting identities related to home, school, friendships, and future. Drawing on the construct of artifacts, a sociohistorical concept that understands…

This paper presents findings from an innovative school-based youth radio project for Mexican immigrant students. We draw on ethnographic and discourse data collected over an academic year, including multiple data representations from video and audio recordings, radio production artefacts, interviews, and still images. We begin our discussion with…

This study embraces the pedagogy that this school's educators believed in and utilized to enhance and expand the academic knowledge of those students who posses a language different from the English language. This research study, represented in a personal narrative, attempts to question the widespread thinking that places all validity on using…

This article provides portraits of two women on professional journeys to become bilingual teachers. Stacie Thao was born in Thailand. Nancy Aguilar was born in California, and spent some of her childhood in Mexico. Stacie's first language is Hmong, while Nancy's is Spanish. Each learned English in school, and each helped their immigrant parents…

It might sound like a no-brainer that being bilingual or multilingual helps students planning engineering and just about any other career. But it is certainly true and is becoming more important as the economies of nations become more intertwined. What's more, being able to go beyond mere language ability and understand cultural distinctions are…

The data in this article comes from a larger 3-year ethnographic study that examines the transnational immigrant lives of second-generation Latina youth whose families reside in northern California and maintain close ties to small rural communities in western Mexico. In the course of the study, three bilingual youth and I developed a participatory…

Resolving conflicting linguistic traditions and struggling with new identities are significant challenges for immigrants to the United States. This case study introduces an immigrant mother from Mexico who renamed her youngest son on his first day of first grade to avoid the widespread stereotypes and academic stagnation experienced by her two…

Reflecting on her experiences as an educator over the past four years, the author realizes that the Center for the Study of Border Pedagogy (Bord Pedagogy) has profoundly shaped her vision for education, significantly changed her instructional practice, and effectively focused her efforts for social justice and equity in multicultural schools.…

This study used a copying task to examine spelling acquisition in French and Spanish from a perception and action perspective. Experiment 1 compared French and Spanish-speaking monolingual children's performance. Experiment 2 analysed the behaviour of bilingual children when copying words in French and Spanish. Gaze lift analysis showed that in…

This article features Lourdes Catholic School, a small Catholic school where students grapple with life and learning in the shadow of two nations. The school, which is governed by the Minim Daughters of Mary Immaculate, is located in Nogales, a desert mountain town straddling the line that separates Arizona from the Mexican state of Sonora. Though…

Reviews historical antecedents and present-day context of literacy teaching in bilingual communities. Outlines four biliteracy categories of language learners. Highlights three projects with different bilingual contexts and different combinations of learning factors. Asserts that literacy instruction should not be restricted to the mother tongue,…

The article presents normative data for the Spanish version of the "Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language" using data based on the speech of 60 Mexican children in three age groups from two to nine years. Half the children were low socioeconomic monolingual, and half were high socioeconomic bilingual. (Author/DB)

Describes the rationale and methods used in Mexico for developing and using bilingual materials for both primary school students and adults. Presents a modification of the system that is designed to improve native-language skills while teaching English as a second language. (FL)

This paper examines the language dominance and oral bilingual proficiency of Tarahumara-Spanish speaking students from Chihuahua, Mexico, within the framework of Cummins' model of bilingual proficiency development. Cummins' model distinguishes between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency…