This comparative case study explores the use of Spanish, Arabic, and English in two elementary classrooms where instruction is delivered primarily in English and teachers and students do not share proficiencies in students' home languages. Using methods derived from ethnography of communication, the study examines how languages other than English…

Test accommodations are changes to test administration, responses, or the test itself that are offered to emergent bilingual students for standardized tests and also for classroom assessments in some states in the USA. Currently there is a lack of research examining the use of test accommodations as a pedagogical practice. This paper presents a…

This article reports on a comparative study of teacher and student perceptions on effective instructional practices in the Spanish heritage language classroom. The data were collected through an online questionnaire administered to 460 students in different Spanish courses and 9 instructors at a large university as well as focus groups. Based on…

The question going into this action research was, "How can a language teacher encourage more positive attitudes toward language learning while building a learning community?" After incorporating "I Can" statements into the curriculum, more than 100 third grade students were surveyed. The survey asked what they thought they could do in Spanish.…

A study examines two major types of vowel systems in languages, centripetal and centrifugal. English is associated with the centripetal system, in which vowel quality and quantity (rhythm) are heavily influenced by stress. In this system, vowels have a strong tendency to move toward the center of the vowel area. Spanish is associated with the…

An analysis of concepts of time in Latin American societies focuses on aspects that can be useful in teaching Spanish as a second language and Hispanic culture in anglophone North America, and includes specific suggestions for classroom activities and teaching techniques. Analysis looks at the following aspects and functions of time: polychronic…

Research in contrastive linguistics suggests that in the teaching of English pronunciation to native speakers of Spanish, it is important for teachers to consider the aspects of each language expressed through different suprasegmentals, or prosodic features. What is often stated at the syntactic and/or lexical levels in Spanish is expressed in…

First-semester Spanish students were encouraged to acquire vocabulary through small- and large-group oral activities plus semantic mapping. A second group participated in similar oral activities but did not perform semantic mapping. A comparison of the two groups suggests a trend toward the effectiveness of semantic mapping as a strategy that…

In an effort to facilitate students' understanding of films in the target language, many instructors turn to films with English subtitles. Viewing films subtitled in English does not encourage learners to use their previously acquired listening skills, but rather allows them to rely on reading English instead of making the extra effort required to…

A guide for using language contrasts to understand and teach pronunciation differences in English and Spanish proposes that all languages are learned in basically the same order, phonetics (listening and speaking) and graphemics (reading and writing). Language can be broken down so that understandable elements (phonology, morphology, syntax, and…

Classroom management is defined as procedures for arranging the classroom environment so that children learn what the teacher wants to teach them in the healthiest and most effective way possible. The Southwestern Cooperative Educational Laboratory presents a discussion of these procedures as they relate to social controls and components of…

This paper argues in favor of dual language programs over typical bilingual education programs because in the dual language program the minority language has a status equal to the majority language. Through the use of the language experience approach, this study examines the role of elicited response from a small sample of English and Spanish…

A study analyzed and compared the classroom interactional strategies of two teachers of Catalan immersion classes and one teacher of Spanish as a native language in Spain at the kindergarten level. The theoretical framework guiding the study is based on analysis of the native-speaker/non-native-speaker distinction. Two comparisons were made: (1)…

A guide to English pronunciation instruction for native Spanish speakers uses eight basic steps to find and use appropriate techniques to address a specific phonological problem. The steps are (1) calling the student's attention to the learning point; (2) focusing attention on the problem area; (3) sharpening student recognition of the sound in…

This study investigated the effectiveness of two English second language (ESL) teaching methodologies commonly used in bilingual classrooms: concurrent translation, often criticized but widely practiced, and dual language preview-review, which combines introductory and follow-up exercises in the first language and lesson teaching in the second…