The purpose of this investigation was to design and test an information-eliciting question instrument in order to determine whether the structures in the verbal responses of young Mexican-American, bilingual children entering school would reveal the covert mental operations, concepts and oral language skills elicited. The basic objective was to…

Twelve teenagers of Puerto Rican origin were interviewed to determine their proficiency in speaking and understanding Spanish. Three levels of oral Spanish proficiency were established as reference points on a continuum by using self-ratings, peer-ratings, and self-reports of usage. These impressions were verified by the number and type of errors…

THE CONFERENCE PAPERS FALL UNDER THREE REPORT HEADINGS--AREAS WHERE RESEARCH IS NEEDED IN BILINGUAL EDUCATION, TEACHING CONTENT IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE, AND BILINGUAL PROGRAMS IN THE SOUTHWEST. WRITERS OF REPORTS ON RESEARCH AREAS SEEM TO AGREE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING CONTENT, WHETHER CULTURAL REALITIES OR ACADEMIC SUBJECT MATTER. THE FIRST…

The goal of this study is to describe the sociolinguistic situation of a small group of bilingual Chicano adolescents residing in a California border town. This report is the first stage in a research project into the social dimensions of language use within the Chicano speech community, and the first phase of a cumulative research strategy in…

The Bay Area Bilingual Education League (BABEL) is a five-district consortium joining forces to confront the need for bilingual education. It encompasses pre-kindergarten through high school. The program incorporates teacher and instructional assistant training ranging from teaching techniques and methodology to cultural awareness. All of the…

A total of 196 Latino bilingual students in grades 4, 6, and 8 were asked to give the Spanish equivalent for English words, some of which had derivational and inflectional suffixes. The results indicated that the students' ability to translate cognates increased with age above and beyond any increase in their vocabulary knowledge in Spanish and…

Describes a preschool teacher's transition from a traditional kindergarten to a multi-age, multi-year (looping) program. Lists common complaints heard from more-traditional teachers receiving children from more-developmentally appropriate classrooms. Explains the importance of using whole language with quality children's books for Spanish-speaking…

This report summarizes academic assessment data for Las Cruces (New Mexico) Public Schools bilingual students in 1996-97. It has eight sections: (1) results of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills for third, fifth, and eighth grade students; (2) results of the La Prueba tests for grades three, five, and eight; (3) results of the New Mexico High School…

This is one of a series of curriculum guides designed to assist bilingual teachers to provide a coordinated program of studies for students in the Connecticut Migratory Children's Program and for any other students whose native language is Spanish. It is felt that an effort should be made to discover the skill level at which a child is…

This is one of a series of curriculum guides designed to assist bilingual teachers to provide a coordinated program of studies for students in the Connecticut Migratory Children's Program and for any other students whose native language is Spanish. It is felt that an effort should be made to discover the skill level at which a child is…

A review of the literature on child language reveals little research on overgeneralization in the speech of the bilingual child. Questions arise regarding (1) the existence of interlingual overgeneralizations, and (2) the possibility that monolingual deviations and bilingual code switching might be forms of overgeneralization. Because a model for…

This book of activities and exercises is intended as a guide for a course in secondary level English as a second language (ESL) for Spanish-speaking (especially Mexican-American) students. Increased proficiency in English is fostered by the examination of the Mexican-American cultural heritage. The material presented is useful in a variety of ESL…

The field of Spanish language instruction for bilingual Chicanos has been an area of pedagogical neglect within most college and university language departments. In the past, teachers wishing to implement a significant modification in their approach and methodology found the task virtually impossible because of a scarcity of commercially prepared…

Current cross-sectional morpheme accuracy methodology whittles away the data until what remains in the final analysis is less interesting than what has been discarded. These methods of analysis obscure and eliminate variation in individual production of the morphemes under study and fail to reveal true systematicity in the data. Using data on…

Design and implementation of a bilingual curriculum for Spanish-language dominant children in kindergarten and first grade are reported in this study. The general philosophy of the project is expressed in six sections including: (1) introduction, (2) school environment, (3) hypotheses and experimental design, (4) review of the first year's…