This mixed-methods explanatory sequential study aimed to identify the most commonly used World Language curriculum models in New Jersey high schools, assess the level of curriculum coherence in Spanish programs, and examine their impact on student learning. Surveys and interviews with high school Spanish teachers revealed that, while theoretical…

This paper explores the experiences of practicing bilingual (English/Spanish, English/Portuguese, and English/Haitian Creole) and English as a Second Language teachers after completing a Bilingual Bicultural Education Certification program. It highlights how teachers defined success when working with their emergent bilingual students and names the…

There is growing interest in including service-learning courses in higher education, and abundant literature exists on this subject. Less researched is binomial service learning, specifically related to civic learning and legal translation. Studies on the goals of combining foreign language instruction with civic participation in the Hispanic…

Cross-linguistically, monolingual children produce target-like inflected verbs much earlier than they can reliably distinguish between singular and plural subject-verb agreement morphology in comprehension (i.e. Johnson, V., J. de Villiers, and H. Seymour. 2005. "Agreement Without Understanding? The Case of Third Person Singular /s/."…

The current study explores utilizing the ACTFL cultural framework to structure synchronous video-based speaking activities and subsequent class discussions. The study includes 39 students in two sections of an intermediate-level college Spanish course who engaged in five 30-minute conversations with native speakers of Spanish via Talk Abroad…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of communicative strategies employed by two primary grade teachers whose students' home language differed from the language of instruction. The communicative strategies examined included verbal, gestural, and other visual modes of interaction within classroom discourse to promote student…

The Spanish writing system has consistent grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences (GPC), rendering it more transparent than English. We compared first-language (L1) orthographic transparency on how monolingual English- and Spanish-readers learned a novel writing system with a 1:1 (LT) and a 1:2 (LO) GPC. Our dependent variables were learning time,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the communicative strategies used by two effective first grade teachers whose students came from lower SES communities marked by a high incidence of school failure. One school was in Akko, Israel and one was in New Jersey in the US. In both settings, the teachers taught lessons in a language that was…

The purpose of this article is to re-conceptualize the role of the monolingual teacher in mainstream K-12 classrooms in the United States who work with students who are mostly multilingual and transnational. The proposed role for monolingual teachers is to incorporate at least some of the resources available in students' native languages, even if…

This article features personal narratives that condemn ideologies that work to render invisible the identities of translingual individuals. The author engages members of the language and literacy field, particularly teachers and researchers, in conversations that will not only denounce antiminoritized groups rhetoric but also counter prejudiced…

In this exploratory study of subtractive bilingualism in Spanish-English bilingual children, we present evidence that crosslinguistic influence has a selective effect on heritage first language loss. Differences in feature strength between English and Spanish in interrogative and negative polarity item (NPI) sentences seem to affect the…

The school readiness of young dual language learners depends on high-quality preschool programs that meet their needs--but how should schools promote and measure the progress of children learning two languages? Find out what the research says in this authoritative resource, which investigates the experiences of dual language learners in preschool…

The Language Assessment Battery was administered as a pre- and post-test to 731 students (mostly Spanish-speaking) in bilingual programs in New Jersey. In all grades tested, results consistently showed that third-year bilingual students outscored first and second year students in English language skills. This supports the contention that bilingual…

This report, the first of a series of papers on educational issues and problems, discusses the special problems of the Hispanic population in New Jersey schools. It describes the joint efforts of the Department of Education, the Commissioner of Education, community groups, and schools to find ways to resolve the problems facing the…

The increased number of Spanish-speaking migrant workers utilized in New Jersey agriculture has made it necessary for the public schools to provide educational programs for bilingual students. This document presents activities and rationale designed to help such children in becoming bilingual and bi-cultural. Included are English-to-Spanish word…