During the last years there has been an increasing interest in examining the brain responses to word order variations. In one ERP study conducted in Spanish, Casado, Martin-Loeches, Munoz, and Fernandez-Frias (2005) had participants read Spanish transitive sentences with either an SVO (subject-verb-object) or an OVS order. The word order of a…

This special issue of the "Heritage Language Journal", guest edited by Silvina Montrul, unites four papers on different aspects of heritage Spanish speakers' linguistic abilities. In this commentary, we reexamine these important contributions with an eye toward implications for instruction and toward general trends for the field. In particular, we…

Seeing the logical problem of second language acquisition as that of primarily selecting and re-assembling bundles of features anew, Lardiere proposes to dispense with the deductive learning approach and its broad range of consequences subsumed under the concept of parameters. While we agree that feature assembly captures more precisely the…

This essay focuses on the status of Spanish within the American educational system. The central argument of the article is that the high number of native speakers of Spanish and non-native learners of the language in the United States should not mask a number of serious issues facing the language in that country.

This paper argues that Spanish-for-native-speakers (SNS) instruction at the secondary level can play a key role in narrowing the Latino achievement gap. To this end, SNS curricula and practices should be configured to: 1) support Spanish-English biliteracy, 2) support and facilitate learning across the curriculum, 3) socialize Latino students and…

Provides the rationale for California's Foreign Language Framework assertion that a model curriculum for foreign languages includes "instruction in native languages for those students who already speak a language other than English." Special focus is on Spanish instruction for Spanish-speaking college students in California. (55…

The pronunciation and use of /s/ in the isleno dialect of Spanish, a dying language spoken in a small ethnic enclave in southeast Louisiana, is examined. Today, there are fewer than 20 fluent speakers of isleno Spanish, which has been described as a fossilized derivative of the speech of Canary Island peasants with additions from Spanish sailors.…

Advocates abandoning the classroom suppression of dialects of native Spanish-speaking students in the southwestern states, and recommends using dialect as a foundation for developing native language skills. (JB)

Looks at what constitutes near-native language skill for students looking for jobs and for those hiring them, with particular reference to Spanish. Finds little consensus among search committees or students about the definition of near-native ability. (Author/VWL)

Offers an alternative to the two approaches to teaching Spanish to adolescent and college-level bilingual native speakers interested in developing their Spanish abilities. This theory draws heavily from Freire's problem-posing procedure for critical dialogue and Vygotsky's theory of social learning. (28 references) (Author/VWL)

Provides a description of the Nuevos Destinos CD-ROM, a joint production for students learning Spanish at the advanced-beginning, intermediate-low, or native-speaker level. Nuevos Destinos involves students in meaningful ways by asking them to solve real-world problems encountered in law offices. (Author/VWL)

Discusses a new Spanish program for heritage language speakers at Peace College in North Carolina. While most programs designed for native speakers have been implemented in large institutions near a strong Hispanic community, the efforts at Peace College show how a program can be effectively developed even in a small women's college with a…

Discusses the terms "native speaker" and "near native speaker" in the foreign language teaching profession, and asks whether a heritage speaker is considered a native speaker of the language. Highlights results of a survey advertising a literature position for a near-native speaker of Spanish. The survey is appended.…

Provides a list of recently published children's books in Spanish for Spanish-speaking children or students learning Spanish as a second or foreign language. The list is divided into one section for very young children and another for middle grade students. Information is also given about a Web site where users can access a searchable database of…

Describes how the resources of nearby Spanish-speaking communities could be exploited by Spanish programs at universities along the United States-Mexican border. (Author/AM)