Studies of Mexican American parents in East Austin (Texas) and rural southern Arizona found that parents' ethnolinguistic vitality was an important determinant of family transmission of Spanish to children, but parental experience of ethnic and language prejudice was an equally potent negative determinant. Implications for language maintenance,…

Studied the grammatical knowledge that undergraduates specializing in bilingual education have of their mother tongue. Data collected from an entrance exam, dialog journals and a simulated oral proficiency exam indicate that these students do not have a formal knowledge of grammatical rules but do have a high level of functional grammar. (24…

Examines the use of persuasive responses by Hispanic second-language writers and categorizes these responses by level of language proficiency and gender. Findings indicate that students exit English-as-a-Second-Language classes without having achieved a higher level of expertise in the use of persuasive discourse and that females elaborate more…

Reviews a book that provides an understanding of the lives of individuals living in two cultural worlds, while at the same time defusing misinformation and skepticism concerning bilingual approaches to education. The book offers many theoretical and practical classroom suggestions as it advocates strengthening first-language literacy in order to…

Perceptions about speakers of Spanish, English, and Chinese were studied among 303 Spanish- and English-speaking Hispanic students in grades 3 and 8 in the southwestern United States. Students' prior experience with a language increased favorable attitudes toward the language, solidarity with its speakers, and perceptions of status associated with…

This article describes the usage of linguistic units and instructional strategies that facilitate word recognition for Latino kindergarten students who are beginning to read in Spanish. This case study was based on coding videotaped reading and language arts instruction of two bilingual kindergarten teachers at the beginning, middle, and end of…

This descriptive study of language use examined the extent to which bilingual Hispanic young adults used their two languages in varying aspects of their lives and analyzed the extent to which they maintained the use of Spanish in these domains. A convenience sample of 202 undergraduate, Hispanic university students completed the Language and…

Inter-American Magnet School in Chicago, a highly acclaimed Spanish-English dual-language elementary school, established pull-out English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes to provide extra English instruction, primarily for new immigrants. Describes the school's founding and development, students, innovative bilingual staff, multicultural…

Among over 600 Arizona students in grades 1-8 in maintenance bilingual programs, fluent Spanish-speaking students outperformed limited-Spanish-speaking students on a measure of Spanish reading, mathematics, social studies, and science achievement; girls achieved higher reading scores than boys; and 16 of 18 grade mean scores were equal to or…

Examines key educational policies and practices that limit opportunities for bilingual education teachers to obtain academic language proficiency in Spanish. Bilingual-education teacher training cannot make up for ground lost by educators who lack prior attainment of math and science Spanish-language skills. Effective Spanish-language competency…

Between 1991 and 1995, 262 books for elementary grades were published in Spanish through U.S. publishers, but only 78 of these were originally written in Spanish by U.S. Hispanic authors. Not all genres were represented, few books were for the higher elementary grades, and most authors were female. Implications for reading achievement among…

A study examined how 50 bilingual fourth-graders utilized cognitive reading strategies to enhance comprehension of expository texts in Spanish and transfer strategic reading behaviors to English reading. Results indicate that strategic behaviors in the native language undergirded second-language reading behaviors and were more important in that…

A Chicana bilingual teacher from Arizona lived with a middle-class Mexican family during a 5-week Mexican immersion program. Her complaints about "harsh reactions" toward her and her Spanish showed how her use of a few stigmatized characteristics of nonstandard Spanish were judged by standard Spanish speakers to indicate an uneducated…

Using the Arizona 5% Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 U.S. Census, we compare language-related figures for the Mexican-origin population with those for the total population. Additionally, we compare place of birth and educational attainment data for Mexican-origin persons who speak Spanish at home with those who speak English-only…

This study compared the efficacy of measures of naming speed, verbal fluency and self-ratings for establishing language dominance in 25 bilingual English-Spanish adults with college degrees. Naming speed was measured by total naming times (in seconds) for five "Alzheimer's Quick Test" tasks (Wiig, Nielsen, Minthon & Warkentin, 2002)…