Drawing on life stories and classroom observations, this qualitative study examined how six bilingual maestras enacted and embodied critical biliteracies through bilanguaging love. These maestras were born, raised, and now teach bilingual education on the Texas-Mexico border. Their stories revealed contradictory and complex beliefs about literacy…

Purpose: Emergent bilinguals (EBs) from Spanish-speaking households are a sizable and quickly growing segment of the preschool population in the United States. However, there is limited research on the provision of opportunities for EBs to engage in language-rich classroom discussion, particularly in English-dominant contexts where most EBs attend…

This article provides an in-depth exploration of the language ecologies of two classrooms attempting to implement a two-way dual language (TWDL) program and its mediating conditions. Drawing on ethnographic methods and a sociocultural understanding of language, we examined both teachers' and students' language ideologies and language practices,…

Early education programs in the United States are experiencing an increase in the number of English learners and, consequently, an increase in dual-language programs that best serve the needs of these children. Dual-language programs enable children to communicate orally and in written forms in both their native languages and in English. This…

Bilingual education has taken center stage in Illinois with a new education mandate; many public preschools will be required to offer bilingual education to all three- and four-year-olds who do not speak English. Dual-language (DL) classrooms represent one very promising model in bilingual education that is being used to develop these new…

Objectives, organization, and teaching strategies for adult Spanish-English bilingual education programs are discussed. It is maintained that these programs exist on a continuum; the position of a particular program on the continuum will be determined by the learning needs of the students vis-a-vis English skills on the one hand and knowledge of…

This Spanish language arts enrichment guide for grades K-5 was produced for use in Detroit, Michigan, public schools. The guide is divided into three parts: (1) language development for grades K-1; (2) reading readiness, focusing on word recognition and comprehension, for grades K-1 and 2-3; and (3) cultural activities for grades K-5. The…

This digest discusses a project conducted in the Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso, Texas, that sought to integrate effective practices in literacy education, an empirically based cooperative learning model, and a classroom management model to help teachers develop the English and Spanish language proficiency of their students. The…

In this study, we explore language--specifically the use of Spanish, in a sixth-grade science classroom, where the district recognises English as the official language of instruction. The question guiding our analysis is: How is Spanish positioned in Ms. Cook's science class? Transcribed interaction from twelve weeks of videotaping is coded and…

Grounded in sociocultural theory, this study uses an ecological approach to examine how student interactions within a dual-language school context may offer affordances for increased linguistic and conceptual understanding. Using qualitative analysis of student discourse, this paper focuses on data from recorded interactions between pairs of…

A study investigated whether teaching techniques and the use of self-evaluation tended to increase student motivation and second language proficiency. Subjects were 59 high school Honors Spanish 4 students with varying levels of academic ability, motivation, and proficiency, and included both non-native and English-dominant Spanish speakers. The…

A number of model lesson plans that use children's literature to teach content area material are presented. The lessons are designed for instruction in either Spanish or English as a Second Language at the elementary school level; some are in English, and some are in Spanish. Each plan identifies the title and basic bibliographic information about…

This article contains a description of the Dual Proficiency (DP) program in an urban elementary school located in the heart of a large south-western city, as well as the teachers who designed and now implement DP, and the immigrant community participating by choice in DP. We write from a context where, ironically, the number of English language…

A curriculum guide series developed by the City of Chicago's Board of Education to help native Spanish speaking, limited English speaking students develop Spanish language reading skills as a preliminary step in teaching English reading skills consists of 13 books. The level L corresponds to grade 6 instruction. The approach used is…

A curriculum guide series developed by the City of Chicago's Board of Education to help native Spanish speaking, limited English speaking students develop Spanish language reading skills as a preliminary step in teaching English reading skills consists of 13 books. The level M corresponds to grade 7 instruction. The approach used is…