This survey of librarians in public and school libraries serving a significant number of Hispanics found that, although 60 percent of the respondents report that books in Spanish for Spanish-speaking children and young adults serve an important educational purpose, many of the remaining respondents are very much opposed to increasing their…

The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed overview of the development and initial validation of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The MSLQ is an 81-item, self-report instrument designed to measure college students' motivational orientations and their use of various learning strategies (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, &…

"Family Connections 1" consists of 30 four-page issues for families of children aged 3-5 years. Each issue begins with a front-page message to families on such topics as parents as first teachers or how children learn through play. Issues also feature activities for families to do together and selections to read aloud to children. A…

Priority goals and objectives of 1,373 intermediate-level college students of French and Spanish and their instructors were examined. Results show students' goal priorities to be related to oral/aural skills of speaking, listening, and pronunciation; instructors ranked speaking high but pronunciation low. The survey instrument is appended.…

The importance of using culturally authentic materials in foreign language instruction is discussed within the context of national calls for American students to understand other cultures. A brief report on a summer institute for Spanish teachers is presented. Participants studied the teaching of culture, some tenets of U.S. culture for awareness…

Findings from a study of the status of Hispanic Americans in South Minneapolis (Minnesota) are presented. Data are from interviews with 34 individuals identified as knowledgeable about the conditions of Latinos in Minneapolis, 4 focus group meetings with an additional 46 community residents, and information from published sources about the size…

This study examines the academic performance of 6th-grade pupils who participated as Spanish-speaking limited English proficient (LEP) pupils in the district's bilingual education program; were reclassified as fluent-English proficient (FEP); and are now enrolled in all-English classes. The investigation was designed to answer the following…

First year planning and implementation of the Portland (Oregon) Partial Immersion Program in Spanish--an elementary magnet program providing a total language experience in a multi-cultural setting--were assessed. The program uses both Spanish and English to instruct students; half of the instructional day is conducted in each language. The…

The history and rationale for entry and exit tests devised to meet Pennsylvania's standards for certifying foreign language teachers are outlined and discussed. The involvement of the Educational Testing Service in developing and validating tests in a variety of subject areas is described, and the need for institutional rather than standardized…

A study was conducted to identify the significant factors of student attrition in Wisconsin's postsecondary vocational, technical, and adult education system to determine predictability, and to indicate areas for improvement of retention measures. Survey instruments were developed to gather data from 121 non-completers and instructors. A third…

A telephone survey was undertaken of a random sample of 75 Hispanic-American family groups in Elgin, Illinois. The purpose was to learn the educational needs and characteristics of this and the large Hispanic-American group it represents in the community. Preferred courses were elicited, and the preferred method of instruction was in English with…

The Home Bilingual Usage Estimate was designed to measure a person's home-family language usage and to yield a single classification according to a criterion scale. The following classifications were established: English monolingual, English dominant, apparent bilingual, Spanish dominant, or Spanish monolingual. Validity was determined by the…

This paper describes results of a questionnaire administered to over 700 students registered in lower-division Spanish courses in November 1973 at the University of Texas at Austin. The purpose of the questionnaire was to survey student attitudes and to move toward a means of evaluating beginning and intermediate level courses. On the basis of the…

The study behaviors of Spanish-speaking students at a large two-year public college in the United States were studied using the Inventario de Comportamiento de Estudio (ECI) (L. Bliss, D. Vinay, and F. Koenigner), the Spanish version of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (C. Weinstein, 1987). Behaviors of these students were compared with…

A study compared the pragmatic performance, using the Adolescent Pragmatics Screening Scale, between two groups of students (n=14) who had been enrolled in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes for varying lengths of time. Results yielded information about the rate at which Latino bilingual students' English pragmatic skills emerged.…