This report from the Comptroller General to Congress is designed to assess the effectiveness of the Bilingual Education Program and to suggest ways to improve its administration. The program as originally conceived is described, and funding, participation, and recent legislative developments affecting bilingual education are discussed. It is…

Examines teaching core French. Proposes engendering national spirit, reassessing university role, adopting businesslike attitudes, undertaking a national research project, pooling publishing expertise, using technology, expanding New Brunswick's testing program, and providing proper teaching conditions. Suggests fluency become basic priority,…

Describes a bilingual education program for Finnish children in Sweden. Analyzes some of the factors influencing the school and language achievement of the Finnish pupils and compares their achievement level with other relevant student groups. (EKN)

Compares 1973 and 1978 studies of the English syntactic proficiency of bilingual Mexican-American fourth- and ninth-grade Spanish/English speakers in Las Vegas (New Mexico). Shows that students enrolled in bilingual education throughout the elementary school years perform better on syntactic maturity measures than do their counterparts not…

Outlines the history of multilingual policies in American education, citing cases in the 19th century where children were taught in their native languages. Also discusses court cases that have had an effect on present bilingual education legislation. Calls for a consistent language policy in American schools. (Author/GC)

Thanks to a small grant, Chinese bilingual students at a San Francisco Mission District middle school became the first students to communicate electronically in Chinese and to publish the world's first online student newspaper in Chinese. By year's end, students participated fully in all academic activities in Chinese and made tremendous progress…

Attempts to stimulate debate on bilingual teaching within the context of secondary education in Great Britain. Questions whether the British educational establishment can provide teachers who are capable of carrying out bilingual teaching. (32 references) (CK)

Studied the grammatical knowledge that undergraduates specializing in bilingual education have of their mother tongue. Data collected from an entrance exam, dialog journals and a simulated oral proficiency exam indicate that these students do not have a formal knowledge of grammatical rules but do have a high level of functional grammar. (24…

Describes Montessori's vision of young children as natural linguists and how home and school can support children's natural abilities in one or more languages. Presents five basic principles of second-language acquisition--related to educational environment, the acquisition process, components of proficiency, and cultural context and time--and…

This book provides practical strategies and tools for assessing and teaching even the most hard to reach English language learners across the content areas. Syrja offers educators the latest information on working with ELLs (including using formative assessments) and provides a wealth of classroom-tested models and measures. These tools have…

Performance assessment of language minority students is a complex process that requires the application of theoretically defensible procedures that are carefully designed and systematically implemented. Due to the differences between language minority students in the schools and those English-as-a-Second-Language/English-as-a-foreign-language…

A study investigated the characteristics of elementary school (kindergarten and grades 1-2) teachers of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students and the oral language proficiency of students in the classrooms of identified effective bilingual and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers. The study involved (1) a district-wide survey of…

Areas of process evaluation which are crucial but often overlooked in determining exemplary bilingual education programs are presented. The process evaluation components discussed are: (1) needs assessment; (2) program planning; (3) commitment and competencies of staff; (4) nature and appropriateness of instruction and curriculum; (5) pupil…

A study examined how long it took 23,044 K-12 limited-English-proficient (LEP) students to lose their legally mandated entitlement to bilingual and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes. All students had been in an English-language school for one year or less as of spring 1982 and all were followed until spring 1986. Three groups roughly…

This leader's manual for a workshop on planning bilingual student assessment describes the workshop, presents information necessary to provide instruction leading to workshop exercises, and provides step-by-step instructions for conducting the workshop. The workshop leader should become familiar with this manual as well as with the workshop text…