In a context of steadily increasing global migration, ethnic and linguistic diversity in Irish schools is becoming both more prevalent and more visible. In Ireland, schools have been availing of Department of Education and Science (DES) funding since 1999 in order to provide English-language support for bilingual students. The support provided in…

The present study was undertaken to find ways to help bilingual preservice teachers become more aware of diversity and more questioning of methods for literacy development in order to address issues of critical literacy. Twenty-five bilingual preservice teachers, enrolled in a Spanish Reading Methods at the university tutored 25 kindergarten…

This study identifies how the contextual features of an elementary school setting shaped and often restricted bilingual kindergarten students' access to friendships within their grade-level English-dominant classroom. Data demonstrate how students utilized a teacher-designed lunch card routine to initiate, maintain, and display friendships in…

Teachers are often unaware that bilingual students often switch between their languages when doing mathematics. Little research has been undertaken into this phenomenon. Results are reported here from a study of language switching by sixteen Year 4/5 Iranian bilingual students as they solved mathematical problems in an interview situation. Reasons…

The universality of reading comprehension strategies across languages is a view generally accepted. What has not been clearly established, however, is the degree to which specific comprehension strategies are used by skilled L1 and L2 readers in the early grades. To investigate this issue, similarities and differences in the reading strategies of…

Culturally and linguistically diverse students develop in bilingual and bicultural environments, often not fully understood or acknowledged in testing. To increase diagnostic accuracy in these circumstances, official guidelines mandate the use of unbiased assessment procedures and multidisciplinary diagnostic input. "Bilingual speech-language…

This article examines the efforts of a school in a Mexican community in Chicago to help children and parents capitalize on the language and culture of their 2 worlds. It builds on the concepts of border crossings and hybridity, metaphors used to describe the sociocultural and linguistic reality of people living transnationally. Some US communities…

A dearth of research has investigated the language preference of bilingual childhood populations and its subsequent relationship to reading skills. The current study evaluated how a sequential bilingual student's choice of language, in a particular environmental context, predicted reading ability in English and Spanish. The participants were…

Urban paraprofessionals are often overlooked but key participants in the optimal functioning of schools. In light of the recent changes and increasing demands regarding paraprofessional qualifications stipulated by the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB), this study focuses on urban bilingual paraprofessionals and their beliefs about work…

This article draws attention to the ever-increasing population of middle level students who come from bilingual education programs and find themselves in our classrooms still learning to use English for academic purposes without the benefit of ESL or primary language supports. Authors Cuero and Dworin advocate for curriculum and teaching that…

The purpose of this dissertation was (1) to determine who holds primary teaching responsibility for bilingual/biculturalism in the public schools; (2) to determine what methods and materials are being used in these programs to teach bilingual students; and (3) to obtain and interpret teacher opinions of the major curricular problems faced in…

Reviews arguments for considering whether Pachuco (the borderlands vernacular which is neither United States English nor Mexican Spanish) belongs in curricular considerations. (SR)

It is much debated whether translation is semantically mediated or based on word-word associations at the lexical level. In 2 experiments with Dutch (L1)-French (L2) bilinguals, the authors showed that there is a semantic number magnitude effect in both forward and backward translation of number words: It takes longer to translate number words…