Two major evaluations of bilingual education differed significantly in evaluation design and results. The American Institute for Research (AIR) conducted the national impact study for bilingual education and gathered data from many programs. AIR based its study on comparisons of mathematics and language arts achievement of students in bilingual…

The study examined whether the California Achievement Test (CAT) results would be affected if the test instructions were administered in the language the children best understood. In a pre-post-test sequence, 77 Mexican American second graders between the ages of 7 and 8 of a low socioeconomic background attending the same elementary school in…

A group of Mexican-American children living in a small Illinois town were observed to study the acquisition of communicative competence. The children's spontaneous and elicited narratives showed combinations of Spanish and English. If three stories represented here are considered syntactically, none involves random alternation of codes. Almost all…

Compares five commonly used English-Spanish language dominance instruments according to area of language measured, domain assessed, developmental comparability, and language variety or dialect. Examines the proficiency information provided and the validity, reliability, and norming of the instruments. Concludes that the tests are not comparable…

A memorandum is presented that summarizes the conclusions of a group of officials on bilingual education policy and the role of bilingual education in the overall language competence of Americans. A letter to Secretary of Education Terrel Bell outlines suggestions for specific actions. (MSE)

Examines the historical and socioeconomic context of classroom code switching in Hong Kong. Empirical analyses of actual instances of classroom code switching reveal this action to be the teachers' and students' local pragmatic response to the symbolic domination of English. The article concludes with a cost-benefit analysis of the Hong Kong…

Using ethnographic observations of classroom interaction in three primary schools, determinants of teachers' language choice and codeswitching among English, Swahili, and mother-tongue were explored: official school policy, cognitive concerns, classroom management concerns, values and attitudes about societal multilingualism. (36 references)…

This study claimed that the ability of bilingual children to solve metalinguistic problems depends upon the demands of a given problem for analysis of knowledge or control of processing. It examined two hypotheses concerning bilingualism and metalinguistic problem-solving: (1) that bilingual children would be more advanced than monolingual…

The research design and analytic approaches used in the national evaluation of the Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title VII Spanish/English Bilingual Education Program are described. This study evaluated the entire program, as opposed to individual projects, and had four goals: to (1) determine the cognitive and affective impact of…

The development of the English as a Second Language Assessment Battery (ESLAB) was based on needs indicated by achievement and placement statistics. The selection of the proficiency skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) was supported by changing views in language assessment and by legislation. Andrew D. Cohen's language model was…

National evaluation of Head Start bilingual curriculum development project indicated bilingual children receiving bilingual preschool services made greater preschool gains than comparison group children receiving regular English-language preschool services; English-preferring children placed in bilingual classrooms achieved similar preschool…

This book presents an outline of the historical development of English in Africa. The book covers all the major aspects of English in separate chapters, but aims at demonstrating how closely these aspects are intertwined. The differences in the historical impact of the English language in different regions are reflected in present sociolinguistic…

Seventy-one subjects (22 English monolinguals, 23 Spanish monolinguals, and one bilingual group comprised of 19 Spanish-dominant and 7 English-dominant bilinguals) were assessed by means of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery and the Woodcock-Johnson Language Proficiency Battery at the beginning of kindergarten and first grade. These…

Similarities and differences in language acquisition and variations in patterns of language dominance were studied with three four-year-old girls. The ideoqraphic study of child speech involved a monolingual English-speaking child, a monolingual Spanish-speaking child, and a bilingual English-Spanish-speaking child. The following measures were…

The Spanish/English Language Performance Screening (S/ELPS) was designed to assist the preschool and early elementary classroom teacher in objectively determining each child's dominant oral language for initial instruction. This report summarizes the development and testing performed in order to revise and validate the measure. After an intensive…