A study of language and literacy activities and attitudes in a southern California bilingual community and the resulting development of more culturally relevant writing instruction for junior and senior high school students of that community is reported. The initial task was an ethnographic survey of the community, focusing on its language…

The Language Profile of Bilingual Students in California was undertaken to determine: (1) students' range of performance on specific language tasks across four age groups in both Spanish and English; (2) the relationship of this performance to proficiency on two tests currently used in California; (3) how the development of the two languages…

A study was undertaken to examine the effects of teaching five writing rules on English summarization and comprehension under two conditions of reading instruction. The five summary writing rules taught included: (1) identifying unimportant statements, (2) identifying repetition of ideas in statements, (3) identifying lists of things or series of…

The first part of these findings is a report on a study of the characteristics of 120 Spanish-English bilingual children's speech over a two-year period in the classroom, on the playground, and at home. Three types of language measures were used as well as audiotaped speech samples taken in the three communication settings. Preliminary findings…

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…

To prepare for the national norming of El Circo (the Spanish-language equivalent of the Circus Assessment Battery) three research questions were posed. First, will the presentation of test instructions in both English and Spanish significantly increase achievement? Second, what level of language competency is necessary for valid use of the various…

This paper reports on a study done at the University of Texas at San Antonio to examine the extent of compoundness or coordinateness with respect to the language use of Spanish-English speaking bilinguals in the Southwest. The long-range purpose was to delve into the more theoretical issue of the kinds of bilingual functioning. The discussion is…

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…

Bilingual education in English and Spanish is intended to give native speakers of both languages insights into two cultures, a broader background, and greater life opportunities. Spanish-speaking students in bilingual programs can retain their language ties and the ability to communicate with their families and older relatives. The directors of…

This guide for teachers of pre-school, Spanish-speaking children provides materials for conceptual development in the target languages. Some 120 structural Oral Language Circle lessons in Spanish and in English, each approximately 15 minutes in duration, represent the heart of this package. Used together, they develop in the child language and…

Mexican American high school students from Texas (50) and California (80) registered reactions to four varieties of Spanish: code switching, ungrammatical, dialectical, "standard" Mexican Spanish. The last rated higher than the other three varieties, the two "non-standard" varieties higher than code switching. Judgements were…

This longitudinal study examined the education of language minority students in five school districts nationwide. Qualitative data included interviews, school visits, surveys, and source documents. Quantitative data included information from registration centers, language minority student databases, student information systems databases, testing…

Each of these three separately-published textbook/workbook editions on the topic of recycling presents key vocabulary words relating to this topic for English as a Second Language students in six languages. These books are designed to increase students' understanding of what the most typical local recycling rules are, why complying with them is…

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…

This article discusses a battery of tests, the "Short Tests of Linguistic Skills," which was developed by the Chicago Board of Education to help teachers determine the language dominance of Spanish bilingual children between the ages of 8 and 13. (CFM)