Several English and Spanish language tests currently used in bilingual education and some less known tests are reviewed, looking at both historic and psychometric factors. It is suggested that practitioners have commonly assumed that all language tests are basically valid, which contributed to the commercial success of some tests of questionable…

The history of language in South Africa is characterized by linguistic inequality, European domination and imperialist ideology, suppression and denigration of indigenous languages through non-recognition, and entangled interrelationships among education, race, language, and identity. Official policy enforced mono- or bilingualism through the use…

In order to better evaluate bilingualism in deaf children, this study examined whether observers (N=37) from different backgrounds would agree on deaf children's use of either American Sign Language (ASL) or English signing. Observers represented a range of background experience in a variety of schools and programs; 6 were deaf; 31 were hearing;…

This study investigated the degree to which Portuguese students (n=100) educated in France switched or mixed languages in a written essay. Subjects were told to express themselves liberally in either or both languages. A linguistic history was also taken for each student. The measures were administered in a French-language school, and instructions…

Information on language use patterns in bilingual classrooms is presented and analyzed in relation to the types of grouping decisions commonly made by teachers. The data were collected from two bilingual elementary classrooms and obtained through audio-recording and observation. Group setting contrasts of group size and instructional mode were…

A study was conducted to compare the communication apprehension levels of Puerto Rican college students with those of United States college students. The Puerto Rican students were considered bilingual, having received instruction in English as a second language for most of their school years. In the first phase of the study, 341 students who…

This is an in-process report on over 100 English-as-a-Foreign-Language argumentative compositions written by Spanish university students in first and fourth year philology. The project aim was to compare writing development over 4 years in a cross-sectional design. As data were collected, factors other than developmental stages began to appear,…

A case study is presented of the development of communication between two adults, one a native speaker of English and the other of Mandarin, over a 5-year period in Taiwan and the United States. Based on diary records, tapes, and letters, it was found that social changes in the couple's lives marked changes in their pattern of communication. Ten…

The 75th anniversary of a city honored among other things for its role in the revival of the Hebrew language is an appropriate occasion to remind ourselves of the complex effects of language policy on education. In choosing to establish Hebrew as its standard language, Israel was working to proclaim both present and historical unity. The rapidity…

A contrastive analysis (CA) does not require commitment to directionality. Even asymmetrical interlingual correspondence can be handled by adirectional statements. If well executed, a CA is capable of handling three pairs of L2 learning phenomena: (1) going from language A to language B and vice versa; (2) productive and receptive command; and (3)…

This study investigated the writing processes of first grade bilinguals from majority- and minority-language backgrounds who were in a two-way bilingual education (TWBE) program. The program integrated native English and native Spanish speakers for all or most of the day, promoting high academic achievement, dual language and literacy development,…

Students' academic achievement scores have been found to improve with the use of graphic organizers. Unfortunately, most previous research on graphic organizers has been constrained to English speakers in secondary and higher education. This study examines the effectiveness of graphic organizers when used by fourth grade students engaged in…

Differences in test performance on time-limited tests may be due in part to differential response-time rates between subgroups, rather than real differences in the knowledge, skills, or developed abilities of interest. With computer-administered tests, response times are available and may be used to address this issue. This study investigates…

Although the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) has been administered to Chinese test takers in Taiwan and Hong Kong for more than 22 years and in China for the past decade, there is very little documentation on the history, test taker volumes, performance, or law school admission rates of these candidates. The current study addresses the following…

This paper addresses the potential value of language-related criteria for use in identifying ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. A description of the way the Dutch government defines ethnic minority groups is followed by a comparative outline of the use of language-related criteria in countries with a longer tradition of immigration (Australia,…