Teachers in a Spanish/English dual language elementary school in Tucson (Arizona) promote Spanish literacy using a school-designed program. The schoolwide, nonscripted program has been successful in supporting the transfer of reading skills from Spanish to English and in including special education students in dual language schooling. (Contains 33…

This study examined schooling characteristics of 46 Hispanic limited-English-proficient elementary students referred to or participating in bilingual special education in New York City. Findings suggested most referrals to special education were due to general academic deficits and reading/language factors, although few interventions had been…

Explores the compatibility of computer-mediated communication (CMC) with two basic objectives of modern foreign language curricula: development of functional and pragmatic abilities, and instructional materials informed by what is known about cognitive processes responsible for acquisition. It is suggested that CMC is particularly compatible with…

Discusses the response of Hope College (Michigan) language departments to shifts in language enrollments, particularly the rise in Spanish enrollments and declines in other languages. Strategies include using the smaller classes as an opportunity to enhance the teaching-learning environment and make those courses more attractive, placement…

Surveys and interviews compared school-related attitudes and activities of 47 Spanish-speaking parents who received training in parental involvement strategies with 84 who did not. The group receiving parent liaison training participated more frequently and in a wider variety of school-related activities. (Contains 40 references.) (Author/TD)

A study assessed an intensive fluency intervention for low-achieving at-risk beginning Spanish readers in grades 1-2. Data from 53 first- and second-graders in bilingual classrooms in southeast Texas indicated that implementing intensive reading fluency interventions in bilingual classrooms is feasible and valuable if conducted with fidelity and…

Describes an interdisciplinary program offering modified Spanish classes to students with special needs. Through preliminary identification, eligible students are signed up for classes. Exemplifies an effective way to confront problems related to a more diverse student population; to comply with regulations imposed by the Americans with…

A study of four high-performing third-grade Spanish reading programs in Texas found six common features: explicit support for Spanish literacy and biliteracy; high expectations; skills-driven reading instruction beginning in kindergarten; shared understanding of program practices; alignment between Spanish and English programs; and explicit…

More than a decade ago, no one held out much hope for the poor, immigrant children at Kennedy Middle School. Nobody thinks that now. This article presents how Kennedy Middle School transformed and beat all the odds to be a "school to watch." In many ways, Kennedy Middle School has become a model of middle-grades improvement. Test scores,…

This article explores the writing opportunities provided to Spanish-speaking and mandarin speaking English Language Learners at the fourth and fifth-grade level across the various classroom settings in which they participated daily: an all-English speaking classroom, an English-as-a-second language (ESL) classroom, and a native-language classroom.…

This study investigated the effect of the cultural background of immigrant children on affective variables in learning three different languages. Participants were students in secondary multicultural classrooms in Spain. A total of 114 students, aged 12 to 16, answered a questionnaire based on Gardner's Attitude = Motivation Test Battery assessing…

Cross-linguistic influence (CLI) is receiving increasing attention in multilingual learners (Cenoz "et al.", 2001). Research with bilingual learners has analysed CLI in relation to language dominance (see, for instance, Hulk & Muller, 2000; Yip & Stephen, 2000) and to language dominance and grade in school settings (Cenoz, 2003; Lasagabaster,…

This study analyzed the implementation of a pre-writing activity that was designed to address L2 student writers' tendency to focus on grammatical accuracy to the exclusion of content and structure. The participants, students in a university-level Spanish composition course, were given a rubric with which to evaluate three previously written…

This study compared the narratives of three groups of advanced speakers of Spanish with different learning backgrounds. The first group was made up of heritage speakers; the second group was composed of missionaries that had recently returned from a two-year sojourn in a Spanish-speaking country; and the third group comprised students who had…

This paper describes the development of Spanish-language proficiency in bilingual preservice teachers at a university on the Texas--Mexico border. A survey with open-ended questions was administered to preservice teachers in bilingual and English as a Second Language certification programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the paths…