This paper describes the use of folktales in the classroom, noting the instructional benefits, challenges and potential problems, and techniques for presenting and expanding on the stories. Of nine folktales told during the school year, five are told in English and four in Spanish, and most are closely tied to the social studies curriculum. Four…

A 16-week office specialist certificate program was developed for Spanish-speaking adults who have the ability and desire to obtain an entry-level office administration position but who have limited English proficiency and basic occupational skills. The program, which is based on the vocational bilingual training model, takes advantage of the…

The plight of students learning language simultaneously with content material, particularly math, spurred this study of the power of socioculturally based pedagogy, such as Instructional Conversation (IC), to increase Spanish-speaking minority students' acquisition of English math lexicon and concepts. This article describes a series of four ICs…

In spite of political pressure, bilingualism is emerging as a strategy for improving the academic achievement of all students. Two-way bilingual or dual-language programs integrate language-minority and language-majority students for instruction in two languages. Site-based decision making has enabled schools in cities that border with Mexico to…

This collection of papers includes the following: (1) "Insights from Research and Practice in Spanish as a Heritage Language" (M. Cecilia Colombi and Ana Roca); (2) "Toward a Theory of Heritage Language Acquisition: Spanish in the United States" (Andrew Lynch); (3) "Profiles of SNS Students in the Twenty-First Century:…

This paper considers how multilingualism is approached in both Japan and the United States by considering the position and roles of the government, schools, and public. There exists the perception in countries where monolingualism is considered the norm that bilingualism, and certainly multilingualism, are problematic. Multilingualism in a…

Within a 3-year period, a rural Midwestern school district's Hispanic student population increased from 3 to over 180 due to the hiring of migrant workers by a local meat packing plant. A qualitative study using interviews and classroom observations examined the processes through which 23 teachers and 5 administrators in this school district…

Immigrant minority groups and immigrant minority languages in Europe are viewed from three perspectives (demographic, sociolinguistic, and educational) through case studies. The first part, using a demographic approach, includes research on immigrant minority groups in population statistics of both European Union and English-dominant countries…

This edited volume includes the following chapters: "Three Kinds of Sociolinguistics and SLA: A Psycholinguistic Perspective" (Dennis R. Preston); "Getting Serious about Language Play: Language Play, Interlanguage Variation, and Second Language Acquisition" (Elaine Tarone); "Oppositional Talk and the Acquisition of Modality in L2 English" (Tom…

On the basis of detailed analyses of 10 threatened language-in-society constellations and three formerly endangered but now secure constellations, this book develops a closely argued theory of worldwide efforts on behalf of reversing language shift (RLS). It also applies this same line of reasoning to the problems of maintaining the…

This report discusses findings from a study that examined issues surrounding the collaborative relationship between Latino paraeducators and the classroom teachers with whom they worked. Specifically, the study examined the types of activities that the paraeducators engaged in, the input they had in classroom instructional activities, the…

This unit was created and first taught by the author in the children's demonstration class that was part of the 1995 Teacher Educator Partnership Institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. The mission of the NFLRC is to improve student learning of foreign languages in…

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, 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…

Focus groups were used to examine the needs of students taking a computer adaptive math assessment. The assessment designed using universal design and item response theory. Focus groups included teachers, administrators, child advocacy groups, and 3rd grade students and parents from the following groups: students with disabilities, students in…

The data and analyses presented in this report are from the first (1980) wave of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) study, "High School and Beyond," a longitudinal study of U.S. high school seniors and sophomores. This study was conducted for NCES by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.…