A study of 8 California school districts immediately following passage of Proposition 227, and another study of 39 districts a year later interviewed personnel, principals, and teachers about implementation of the English Only initiative. Specific implementation strategies reflected schools' previous programmatic efforts for limited English…

Discussion of multilingual education looks at three European models, each designed for a different population, and compares them with the Canadian immersion model. The models are: (1) trilingual education applied to the entire school population of Luxembourg; (2) multilingual education in the nine-institution, five-city European School network,…

This work is one in a series that focuses on nine languages representing the bulk of the second language learning effort in Australian education (Arabic, Modern Standard Chinese, French, German, Modern Greek, Indonesian/Malay, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish). These languages were categorized as the Languages of Wider Teaching. This particular work…

The information on two-way bilingual programs presented in this volume was gathered as the first phase of a study for the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. Two-way bilingual programs integrate language minority and language majority students and provide instruction in and through two languages. This…

A study of progress in the Edison Elementary School (California) bilingual immersion program after its first year of implementation looked at: (1) student levels and gains in first and second language proficiency; (2) levels of math and reading achievement and their possible relationship to student language background; (3) levels of students'…

This report consists of an evaluation of four experimental French programs (1973-74) and the federally-funded extensions of these programs (1974-75) in the schools of the Carleton, Ontario, Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Part 1 provides a review of literature relevant to immersion, intensive and enriched language programs, and the…

Thirty-two children who experienced difficulty in primary French immersion were compared to seven other groups of children matched for age and sex on a wide variety of language, perceptual, academic achievement, memory, motor, sensory and other tests to determine if there was anything unique in the profile of this group. The comparison groups…

The Culver City (Calif.) Schools' Spanish Immersion Program (SIP) offers an innovative and highly successful approach to the development of proficiency in a foreign language in the elementary grades. This approach differs from most bilingual programs in that for the first two years the students are completely immersed in Spanish. When the students…

Examples of the spontaneous speech in French of native English speakers, average age 7.6 years, were collected at the end of their second year in a French immersion program. Results show that the native language strongly influences second language speech production. While vocabulary and pronunciation are of course predominantly French, the…

A structured immersion program, coupled with an effective curriculum and empirically validated teaching procedure, was offered to elementary Asian students entering a California school. This approach appeared to have significantly better results, and its effects were maintained for up to two years after completion. (LMO)

Conference papers examine efforts by Indigenous communities, particularly Native American communities, to maintain and revitalize their languages. The 27 papers are: "Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Maori: The Language Is the Life Essence of Maori Existence" (Te Tuhi Robust); "The Preservation and Use of Our Languages: Respecting the…

Voters in California will vote June 2, 1998 to decide the fate of Proposition 227, a measure proposed by businessman Ron Unz that would substantially change the way that students who are not proficient in English are taught. If approved by the voters, Proposition 227, the Unz Initiative, would essentially eliminate bilingual education programs in…

California's Proposition 227 requires that all children be taught English by being taught in English. This proposition, which basically outlaws bilingual education, is the newest chapter in the history of how non-English speaking and limited English proficient (LEP) students should be educated. After presenting the historical, social, political,…

Essays on political issues in multicultural and bilingual education include: "Cultural Recognition and Civil Discourse in Democracy" (Carlos J. Ovando, Peter McLaren); "The Political Life of Language Metaphors in Writings About Diversity in Education" (Sharon Pugh, Ovando, Nicole Schonemann); "Contesting Whiteness:…

Examines ways to adjust instruction to develop language while teaching specific academic content to students from different cultural and language backgrounds, focusing on students in Hawaii. Information is presented on adjusting instruction so that students will understand better, with emphasis on providing sufficient cues and information,…