The study was conceived as a critique of the bilingual education curricula generated by the Bilingual Education Act, with specific reference to the Puerto Rican collectivity in the United States. Six criteria were developed, drawing from the integration of theories of social action and language usage. The criteria were then applied to specific…

The purpose of this essay is to uncover the factors which have so greatly affected the educational and social aspect of the Puerto Rican's life in the New York metropolitan area. It is concluded that school systems are obviously not going to foster disorder or encourage criticism. The initiative is up to the community. The Puerto Rican community…

A study analyzed the use of Basque and Spanish by 36 bilingual teenagers enrolled in a Basque school in Spain, based on results of a survey. The history and present situation of the Basque language are outlined, and the importance of the revival of the Basque language by those who learn it in school is highlighted. Complete technical data from the…

A bilingual survey was developed to register the feelings of parents toward involvement in their children's preschool and kindergarten and to determine the unique needs of parents during interactions with the schools. The survey was tested with 50 parents, and the results were tabulated to determine differences between the feelings of Hispanic and…

This report describes a program for improving listening skills, lack of which interferes with second language acquisition. The targeted population was first- and second-year Spanish students in one middle school and one high school. Intervention over 15 weeks included changes in the classroom environment (desk arrangement, improved lighting,…

This paper presents a descriptive examination of the effects of high school learners of Spanish who complete a series of Internet-based assignments using a popular online Spanish tutorial. The study is designed to measure the knowledge acquired from the World Wide Web by administering and comparing a pretest and a posttest to both a sample and a…

This report describes instructional strategies to decrease anxiety and frustration in the Spanish classroom. Participants were five 7th grade Spanish classes in two suburban middle schools. Student interventions included a study skills guide; partner and group presentations, skits, and activities; and group oral reading. Teacher interventions…

This thesis reports on a study of the use of first and second languages among students of a Spanish immersion program. Eight fifth- and sixth-graders with varying levels of Spanish proficiency participated in the study. Data were collected through student verbal reports, questionnaire-based interviews, classroom observations, and background…

The following award-winning dissertations in bilingual education are included here: (1) "The 1974 Bilingual Education Amendments: Revolution, Reaction, or Reform" by Susan Gilbert Schneider; (2) "(Memory Organization, Bilingualism, and Interlingual Interference: A Comparative Analysis of the Semantic Distance and Semantic Judgment…

This work is intended to find replies to practical questions, such as how well native speakers of Spanish are decoded by native speakers of English, which errors interfere with decoding by the listener, and what the implications of the study might be for teaching. Fifteen Chileans were asked to tell stories in English, and several panels of native…

A process that could facilitate a cross-cultural learning environment was designed. The process involved (1) developing motivational devices using an historical selection process that incorporated a "significant difference", evaluated reconstructed historical materials, devices that prevent a "past-present" dichotomy,…

In an effort to determine why students with similar academic abilities have differing rates of success in learning English as a second language (ESL), a study of 225 native speakers of Spanish enrolled in the ESL program at Manhattan Community College was conducted during the 1975 Fall semester to test the hypothesis that success in ESL is…

This paper examines the use of oral dialogue journals as an integral part of foreign language instruction. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of oral (audiotape) journals, and compares them to written journals. The paper then explores the use of oral dialogue journals in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to adult students…

The purpose of this study was to develop and test the effectiveness of a program in which activity-based science was used as a conceptual basis for language instruction. A series of four instructional units were adapted for bilingual use. Students' written and oral observations were used in experience charts and other language development…

The report describes a study of the interaction between native Spanish-speaking and native English-speaking students in four classes (one kindergarten, one first-grade, and two second-grade) in a suburban community, and a program to increase interaction. Initially, lack of interaction between these groups was documented using classroom…