This paper describes the General Educational Development (GED) Testing Service's Spanish Test Adaptation Project. The GED Tests are designed to give those who have not graduated from high school the opportunity to earn a diploma that is recognized by institutions of higher education and employers. The purpose of this project is to develop, based…

Discusses the teaching of Spanish to native Spanish speakers, looking at the history of the field and the experiences of bilingual students. Suggests that while bilingual educators and Spanish language teachers may see themselves as quite different from each other, their students may perceive their classes as similar. Reference is made to a study…

A case is made for bilingual education in Britain, emphasizing the importance of the heritage language in child development. For children to appreciate language diversity, they must gain insight into the nature and form of languages and their roles in society. (SLD)

Focuses on the mentoring of beginning (preservice) mathematics and science teachers in classrooms with large populations of bilingual students or students for whom English is a second language. Mentors can play a crucial role in preparing preservice teachers to instruct language minority students. (SLD)

This article reviews the current policy context in the state of Arizona for program options for English language learners and produces a meta-analysis of studies on the effectiveness of bilingual education that have been conducted in the state in or after 1985. The study presents an analysis of a sample of evaluation studies (N = 4), which…

Research on media effects has documented the media's influence on beliefs and behavior while cross-cultural psychology has documented the effects of the language used in communication on identification with the ingroup and the outgroup. Media usage in the outgroup language should, therefore, affect identification patterns. This research…

Techniques for assessing test validity and reliability are applied to an analysis of an unpublished test, in order to familiarize test users in local bilingual programs with the technical evidence that should be available for instruments of potential use in placing limited English-speaking students. The instrument studied, the Language Assignment…

This study explored bilingual education in California, analyzing California law on instruction for English Learners before and after Proposition 227. Proposition 227 required that all English Learners (EL) participate in a sheltered English immersion program in which most instruction was in English with curriculum and presentation designed for…

Identifies concerns of teachers working with isolated bilingual students, outlining key principles for ensuring that they are seen as learners who must learn what all others students learn and still develop bilingually. The context is that of the south of England, but the concerns may be common to all educators. (SLD)

The results of a multistep process to begin identifying best practices in deaf education are presented. To identify current practices, a survey was conducted of the literature, the Web sites of professional organizations, and states' education Web sites, which yielded a number of commonly discussed practices. Ten of the more highly cited practices…

Ways in which an evaluation of bilingual programs could be appropriately conducted were studied, using two transitional bilingual education programs. In Program A, the first language (Spanish) is the initial medium for all instruction with a gradual phasing in of English. Program A is located in a large suburban school system in central…

Between 1976 and 1979, Head Start, as part of its strategy for Spanish-speaking children, funded four institutions for the purpose of developing and implementing four distinct bilingual bicultural preschool curriculum models for use with Spanish-speaking children. In 1977, the Research, Demonstration, and Evaluation Division of the Administration…

The goals of this nondiscriminatory assessment training model are presented in terms of training school psychologists to carry out their tasks with greater sensitivity to the needs of bilingual students and to work with the resources available within the school and the community. The two courses of an inservice program focusing on cultural-ethnic…

Describes the development of procedures, strategies, and resources to welcome new students into a British elementary school. Parent visits to the school and supporting the child's language needs were important features. A truly multicultural school is welcoming and accepting of diversity from the child's first entrance. (SLD)

A study of bilingual third-graders beginning formal English literacy in a whole-language classroom found that students improved in reading abilities and comprehension, as assessed through miscue and retelling analysis; writing results were mixed; and holistic assessment of overall writing abilities did not show improvement. Students' uneven…