Lina, a Mexican American second grader, bilingual in Spanish and English, used a strategy for adding two two-digit numbers that the authors share as an example of the importance of listening to the mathematical ideas of children, especially when these ideas do not align with how mathematics is traditionally represented in the classroom. The…

Sometimes students manage to complete investigations without really using complex and scientific language. Even when they use scientific vocabulary, they do not always build logical arguments to communicate their findings. In this article, the author describes how several elementary science teachers addressed this challenge in after-school STEM…

This study reports on an innovative approach to dual-language instruction (DLI) at the secondary-education level and introduces the 2-1-L2 model. The context of the study is an American Government class at a public charter high school in Tucson, Arizona, where the 2-1-L2 model was used for nine weeks to structure daily 90-minute lessons into a…

This purpose of this investigation is to explore the cultural challenges faced by Mexican immigrant students through the study of current literature. Four themes emerged as a result of the investigation: dominant pedagogy, educational skills, deficit model, and student identities. The themes are discussed and suggestions are made as to how these…

The display of Spanish and English communicative competence of two Hispanic children is explored in a study analyzing directive speech acts (orders, requests, suggestions, hints). The linguistic, sociolinguistic, and strategic resources of the Mexican-American children, aged 4-1/2 to 6 years, are examined qualitatively in data taken from…

Argues that, although Spanish/Mexican women have been important creative forces in shaping the development of California, their accomplishments have gone largely unrecorded. Describes the experiences of Spanish/Mexican women in California during the nineteenth century. Pays particular attention to the contributions of women in missions and on…

The City of Chicago's curriculum guide for public school Spanish native language instruction in grades 7, 8, and 9 has two sections, one in English and a corresponding one in Spanish. The program is primarily, though not exclusively, oriented toward the large Mexican immigrant community in the city with varied academic skills and experience with…

The fact that a writer's culture influences the composing style is undeniable. Spanish speakers writing in English often allow their points to "leap around," perhaps constituting a pattern the instructor does not see. In "Beyond Culture," Edward Hall explains that cultures operate under either "monochronic" or…

A content-based curriculum in English as a Second Language (ESL) focusing on prenatal self-care is presented. The course was designed as a solution to the problem of inadequate prenatal care for limited-English-proficient Mexican immigrant women. The first three sections offer background information on and discussion of (1) content-based ESL…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). In the summer of 1996, the Center offered the Culture and Children's…