CENTER FOR MULTILINGUAL, MULTICULTURAL RESEARCH

---

INDEX OF FULL TEXT ARTICLES

BY TITLE

Articles and resources listed here are not necessarily endorsed by the CMMR; they are listed for informational purposes only. If you would like to submit an item for inclusion on this page please write our webmaster. To suggest a site to be added to this web site please visit our "Submit a Site" page.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

• Academic Achievement for Secondary Language Minority Students: Standards, Measures and Promising Practices

  by K. Anstrom. This document summarizes, analyzes, and integrates findings from relevant research pertaining to the education of language minority students in the content areas. The study focused on the instruction of secondary-level language minority students in mainstream social studies, science, mathematics and language arts classes. Specifically, the document focuses on several key questions: What does the relevant literature pertaining to content area instruction of linguistically and culturally diverse learners (LCDLs) contribute to the theory and practice of (1) standards for LCDLs? (2) measures of achievement, proficiency, and/or academic literacy for LCDLs? (3) the field of promising practices in content area instruction for LCDLs? The report includes preparation of mainstream teachers to work with language minority students.

• Academic Invulnerability Among Mexican Americans: A Conceptual Framework

  An article by S. Alva and A. Padilla reviewing factors that Mexican American students who overcome a number of socioeconomic and cultural disadvantages use to succeed academically. Why do some Mexican American students do well while others fail despite sharing similar socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds? The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that assigns a central role to the interaction among sociocultural, personal, and environmental factors in explaining the academic performance of Mexican American high school students.

• Acquiring a Second Language for School

  Given the misinformation that persists about second language acquisition among both educators and the public, this short publication by Virginia P. Collier is written to guide the reader through the substantial research knowledge base that the field has developed over the past 25 years.

• Advances in Research in Bilingual Education

  by Gustavo Gonzalez & Lento F. Maez. As we prepare students to meet the challenges of the 21st century, research must be utilized to guide the implementation of innovative and comprehensive school-wide instructional practices that focus on helping all students meet high standards. The findings and conclusions from the research studies discussed here can be applied to help linguistically and culturally diverse students reach high levels of achievement and performance.

• African Languages at the K-12 Level

  by Patricia Kuntz. Although the teaching of African languages at the elementary and secondary levels is rare, a number of schools offer one or more of the following major African languages at these levels: Arabic (North Africa), Hausa (West Africa), Swahili (East Africa), Wolof (Senegal), Yoruba (Nigeria), and Xhosa and Zulu (South Africa). This digest suggests these programs have adequate instructional materials, learning time, effective teaching practices, and curricula designed by scope and sequence.

• Age-Related Factors in Second Language Acquisition

  by Charles William Twyford. The author of this article analyzes a number of factors - cognitive, sociocultural, affective, and linguistic-- that may account for age differences in second language acquisition.

• American Civil Liberties Union Briefing Paper on "English Only"

  The ACLU opposes "English Only" laws because they can abridge the rights of individuals who are not proficient in English, and because they perpetuate false stereotypes of immigrants and non-English speakers. This briefing paper elobrates on these critical issues.

• American Indian Culture and Curriculum: A Guide to Literature
  
  

  by Mary Hermes. Located within the recent scholarship in Indian Education, this brief annotated bibliography concentrates on the subject broadly referred to as "culture and curriculum." If culture is understood as the collective values, practices, and will of a people, then cultural practices in Indian education can only be understood as acts of self determination.

• American Indian Language Policy and School Success
  
  

  by Jon Reyhner. This article looks from a historical perspective at what impact the implementation of the American Indian Languages Act might have on Indian education.

• American Indian Learning Styles Survey: an Assessment of Teacher Knowledge:

  by K. Swisher. This study is an exploratory effort to determine current thinking about learning styles from the perspective of those groups closely associated with American Indian students, i.e., teachers and administrators of the schools attended by American Indian students. The study assumes that there is a pervasive, but not clearly defined, understanding by practitioners of learning styles relating to American Indian people. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of teacher knowledge about learning styles and to determine the extent to which this knowledge is applied in classrooms attended by American Indian students.

• Analysis of Final Report Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early Exit and Late-Exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language-Minority Children

  by Jim Cummins and Michael Genzuk. The U.S. Department of Education released the findings of an eight-year study designed to provide definitive answers to one of the most volatile questions in American Education: What types of programs work best in helping Hispanic students succeed in school? The issue has revolved around the effectiveness of bilingual education which involves using the child's primary language in addition to English as a language of instruction. This article also available in Spanish.

• Anatomy of the English-Only Movement: Social and Ideological Sources of Language Restrictionism in the United States

  by James Crawford. Paper presented at a Conference on Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March 21, 1996.

• An Examination of Assessment of Limited English Proficient Students

  by A. M. Zehler, P. J. Hopstock, H. L. Fleischman, C. Greniuk. The purpose of this report is to examine assessment instruments and practices and to review issues related to assessment of LEP students. It is critical to examine these issues now, as major steps are being taken toward: (1) the redesign of assessment approaches; and (2) definition of standards and new national assessment systems. Given their increasingly large representation in schools today, issues related to language minority and LEP students should be included early on in the efforts to define new assessments.

• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Teaching

  The nation's schools are increasingly multiracial even as the teaching force continues to be predominantly white. This juxtaposition of burgeoning "minority" school populations against dwindling numbers of "minority" teachers has drawn much scholarly attention. Yet, few studies include data on Asian and Pacific Islander (API) teachers rendering information partial, at best. This ERIC digest A. Lin Goodwin reviews available data on APIs in order to assess their presence in the teaching profession.
  
  

• Asian-American Trends And Issues

  Annotated bibliographies and abstracts about equity and diversity posted by the ERIC Clearinghouse on trends and issues affecting Asian-Americans.

• Assessing Integrated Language and Content Instruction
  
  

  by Deborah J. Short. Integrated language and content instruction has become a popular alternative to traditional ESL instruction. Researchers have recommended this instructional approach to develop students' academic language ability and facilitate their transition to mainstream classes. Practitioners have also favored this approach to prepare students for mainstream classes, increase student motivation and interest with content themes, and make ESL students feel part of the mainstream school curricula. This article addresses the issue of assessment in integrated classes and provides a framework for organizing assessment objectives. It recommends using alternative assessment measures, such as checklists, portfolios, interviews, and performance based tasks.

• Assessment for American Indian and Alaska Native Learners

  by Roger Bordeaux. This Digest examines the use of standardized, nationally normed testing in assessing the progress of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. It describes studies that have shown the inadequacies of these assessment methods as well as theories that attempted to explain the poor test results of the AI/AN population. The Digest then describes alternatives to standardized testing, particularly performance based assessment, recommended by Native and non-Native educators and researchers.

• Assessment Strategies for Professional Development Activities:

  by Judith Wilde. This document provides information to those who might be planning professional development activities for educational personnel. While the focus is on assessment of those participating in professional development activities related to English language development, sheltered content instruction, and bilingual instruction, the processes involved can, and should, be applied to any professional development activity that results in a certificate or license of some type -- any professional development activities that will result in better educational programs for all students within the school.

• Assessing the Educational Progress of Children of Immigrants

  by R. G. Rumbaut. This review is intended to provide some insight into the determinants of the educational progress and adaptation of the children of these new immigrants in California public schools. Results from a comparative research study of the educational performance of children of immigrants in San Diego schools (including dropout rates, grade-point averages [GPAs], achievement test scores, and educational aspirations), focusing on the largest groups: Mexicans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and East Asian groups is given. This is followed by a review of three illustrative case studies of the adaptation of immigrant high school students who reside in different parts of California: Southeast Asian refugees, Punjabi Sikhs from India, and Mexican immigrants.
  

B

• Baby Talk

  by Shannon Brownlee. U.S. News artilce in which Ms Brownlee reveals that learning language, researchers are finding, is an astonishing act of brain computation--and it's performed by people too young to tie their shoes. Geneticists and linguists recently have begun to challenge the common-sense assumption that intelligence and language are inextricably linked, through research on a rare genetic disorder called Williams syndrome, which can seriously impair cognition while leaving language nearly intact (box). Increasingly sophisticated technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging are allowing researchers to watch the brain in action, revealing that language literally sculpts and reorganizes the connections within it as a child grows.

• Becoming Bilingual in the Amigos Two-Way Immersion Program

  by Mary T. Cazabon, Elena Nicoladis, and Wallace E. Lambert. Research on the most effective forms of bilingual education (usually in terms of English achievement) suggests that two-way programs may be the best. Two-way bilingual education has been described in a national study as "the program with the highest long-term academic success" (Thomas & Collier, 1997, p. 52). The students' success in these programs is undoubtedly due to a number of factors. These include opportunities for linguistic minority students to assume strong peer leadership roles in the classroom, an emphasis on grade-level academic instruction in both languages, sustained support for and use of multicultural curricula, and opportunities for non-English-speaking parents to form close partnerships with the school staff as well as with other parents. The purpose of the present report is to examine students' development in a two-way bilingual program by focusing on both their attitudes toward becoming bilingual (and possibly bicultural) and their school achievement in both languages. Although the authors do not have data to examine causal links between attitudes and achievement, they see this study as a first step toward showing the relationship between the two.

• Best Evidence: Research Foundations of the Bilingual Education Act

  A review of current research literature on the education of language minority students in the United States. The result of the review is the presentation of the "Best Evidence" as it relates to the research foundations of the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of The Improving America's Schools Act). The author, Jim Crawford, has organized the document according to the Congressional findings on the Bilingual Education Act.

• Beyond Culture: Communicating With Asian American Children And Families

  by Gary Huang. To explore the complexities of communication with Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) children and their families, this digest describes the overt and covert dimensions of the various API cultures, and discusses APIs' socioeconomic background and life experiences that affect their communication behavior. The goal is to help practitioners improve communication with APIs and, thus, more effectively educate API children.

• BICS and CALP: Clarifying the Distinction

  Jim Cummins, from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education clarifies aspects of the distinction between basic interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency that he framed 20 years ago (Cummins, 1979) as a qualification to John Oller's (1979) claim that all individual differences in language proficiency could be accounted for by just one underlying factor, which he termed global language proficiency.

• Bilingual Education: A Focus on Current Research

  by Stephen D. Krashen. The core of the case for bilingual education is that the principles underlying successful bilingual education are the same principles that underlie successful language acquisition in general. These principles are: (1) We acquire a second language by understanding messages, by obtaining comprehensible input. (2) Background knowledge can help make second language input more comprehensible, and can thus assist in the acquisition of the second language. (3) The development of literacy occurs in the same way as second language acquisition does.

• Bilingual Education: New Visions for a New Era
  
  

  by Barbara Miner. This article looks at two California schools with large Latino populations take very different tacks to preserve bilingual literacy in the wake of Proposition 227's "English-only" provisions.

• Bilingual Education: The Controversy

  by Richard Rothstein. A Phi Delta Kappan article suggesting that our commonly held notion of how earlier generations of immigrants were educated -- often used as the chief argument in support of English immersion -- is a myth.

• Bilingualism and Bilingual Education: A Research Perspective

  This article by by Kenji Hakuta reviews numerous areas including the following topics: bilingualism defined, what is bilingual about bilingual education? second language learning, bilingualism and cognitive development, and cross-language transfer of skills and knowledge.

• Bilingualism in America: A Forgotten Legacy

  An historical perspective on bilingualism and bilingual education in North America. From James Crawford's highly acclaimed book, Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory, and Practice.

• Bilingual Reading Instruction

  Reading is a discipline that requires a significant transfer of skills, knowledge, and concepts from one language to another for bilingual students. In the classroom, bilingual educators must provide instruction that builds a strong foundation for reading literacy in both the first and second language. The research and classroom practices highlighted in this pathway provide bilingual educators with specific methods and materials that can be used to build a strong foundation in reading.

• Bilingual Special Education Teacher Preparation: A Conceptual Framework
  
  

  by Diane Rodriguez and Angela Carrasquillo. The purpose of this article is to discuss a conceptual framework for bilingual education teacher preparation. The framework described is based on information provided by experienced bilingual special education field specialists (teachers, administrators, clinicians, and professors) about the competencies bilingual special education teachers need to demonstrate in order to meet the unique needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students with disabilities. The article describes five areas relevant to the preparation of bilingual special education teachers: language proficiency, assessment, planning and delivery of instruction, culture and advancement in the profession.

  NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Blueprints for Indian Education: Improving Mainstream Schooling

  by Robin Butterfield. This Digest focuses on findings of the U.S. Department of Education's Indian Nations At Risk (INAR) Task Force (1991) and the White House Conference on Indian Education (1992) related to Native students who attend public schools. Task Force and Conference findings--produced in early 1991 and 1992, respectively--suggest systemic reforms that would (a) foster intercultural harmony in schools, (b) improve teacher preparation, (c) develop instructional curricula and strategies that support diverse cultural needs and learning styles, (d) include AI/AN parents in the educational process, and (e) adopt a new paradigm for evaluation of AI/AN student progress and success.

• Blueprints for Indian Education: Languages and Cultures

  by William Demmert. This Digest connects personal experience to that of other Native peoples and to the findings of two national studies. The Digest concludes with a summary of steps that must be taken at the local and federal levels, as recommended in the studies.
  
  

• Brains Show Signs of Two Bilingual Roads

  by B. Bower. Unlike people who become bilingual after childhood, those who learn a second language at an early age rely on the same critical patch of brain tissue when speaking either tongue, according to a new study. Adult learners of language apparently recruit nearby groups of brain cells, suggest neuroscientist Joy Hirsch of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and her colleagues.

• A Brief History of Language Restrictionism in the United States

  by Thomas Ricento. A review of the history of language restrictionism in the United States and commentaries on current efforts to declare English the official language.

C

• Capturing Latino Students in the Academic Pipeline

  by Patricia Gándara, Katherine Larson, Russell Rumberger, and Hugh Mehan. This Brief reports on three California school-based programs aimed at improving the rate of both high school completion and college attendance among Latino students. While the aims of the three programs are similar, their strategies differ according to the segment of the population they target and the ways in which they deploy their resources. Yet each has proven to be effective. ALAS targets the lowest-achieving Latino students who are at the greatest risk of dropping out of high school. AVID targets underachieving students with above-average test scores who have the potential to take more-demanding college preparatory courses in high school. Puente targets students with varied levels of achievement with the aim of ensuring that they finish high school and go on to college. The report describe each of the programs and the evaluation results that exist to date.

• Caring, Community, and Personalization: Strategies to Combat the Hispanic Dropout Problem

  In this article A.T. Lockwood examines the context in which Hispanic students drop out of school--and what one exemplary middle school has done to battle these contextual factors. A web of interlocking factors synergize to make dropping out of school much more likely for Hispanic students. Factors include racial and ethnic identity, gender, socioeconomic status, academic performance, self-concept, family organization, and language fluency.

• Chinese Heritage Community Language Schools in the United States
  
  

  This digest by Theresa Hsu Chao suggests that Chinese heritage community language schools (referred to here as Chinese language schools) are an integral part of the Chinese community in cities across the United States. According to a recent study by the National Council of Associations of Chinese Language Schools, approximately 82,675 students are taking Chinese in 634 language schools across the country. This article reviews the process and the schools.

• Chinese Parents' Influence on Academic Performance

  This article by S.Y. Zhang and A. Carrasquillo reviews the literature related to Chinese parents' influence on Chinese students' educational performance. Cultural values always play an important role in the educational achievement of Chinese students. Chinese parents are renowned for their willingness to sacrifice for the sake of their children's education. Parents have a significant influence in the academic performance of Chinese students.
  
  

• Choosing Higher Education: Educationally Ambitious Chicanos and the Path to Social Mobility

  by Patricia Gandara. This is a study of high academic achievement found in the most unlikely places: among low-income Mexican Americans from homes with little formal education. It examines the backgrounds of 50 persons, male and female from one age cohort, who met most of the predictors for school failure or "dropping out." All came from families in which neither parent completed high school or held a job higher than skilled labor; the average father finished grade four and most were sons and daughters of farmworkers and other unskilled laborers. Most began school with Spanish as their primary language, yet all completed doctoral-level educations from the country's most prestigious institutions. This study investigates the forces that conspire to create such anomalies. Its aim is to suggest how such outcomes might be the product of design rather than accident.
  
  

• A Chronology of the Official English Movement

  By Jamie B. Draper and Martha Jiménez. Not since the beginning of this century has language received as much attention in the United States. Like the language battles of the early 1900s, those of the 1980s were rife with appeals to patriotism and unity casting language minorities in the role of outsiders who deliberately "chose" not to learn the English language. This article provides a chronological overview of these efforts.

• Classroom Materials On African American Studies

  Annotated bibliographies and ERIC abstracts highlighting classroom materials for African American studies and students. The documents and journal articles have been entered into the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. Most documents can be ordered from original sources or from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service, 1-800-443-ERIC.

• Classroom Strategies For Encouraging Collaborative Discussion
  
  

  by Carmen Simich-Dudgeon, Patricia Anne DiCerbo. This article is written primarily for English as a second language (ESL), bilingual and mainstream teachers who have English language learners in their classroom. The methods and activities described throughout can be successfully adapted for use with elementary, middle, and high school students. In reworking these activities for their own classrooms, teachers will want to consider the literacy and English proficiency levels of their students, along with such factors as age, cultural and education background, and learning style.

• Closing the Education Gap: Benefits and Costs

  by G. Vernez, R.A. Krop, C.P. Rydell. This Rand report asks: How much would it cost and what would the benefits be if blacks and Hispanics graduated from high school, went to college, and graduated from college at the same rate as non-Hispanic whites? The answer to this important question for the future of the nation is explored in this report. The costs of education would be high, increasing by about 20 percent in California and 10 percent in the rest of the nation. But the benefits, in the form of savings in public health and welfare expenditures and increased tax revenues from higher incomes, would be even higher. Indeed, the added costs of providing more education to minorities would be recouped well within the lifetime of taxpayers called upon to make the additional investments. The nation is experiencing a rapid immigration driven increase in the share of Hispanics in the school age population. Failure to increase the educational attainment of this group would result in growing shares of new labor-force entrants having levels of education lower than those prevailing today; in increased income disparities between blacks and Hispanics, on one hand, and Asians and non-Hispanic whites, on the other; and in increased public expenditures for social and health programs for generations to come.

  NOTE: To read this article in PDF format you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Communicative Language Teaching: An Introduction And Sample Activities
  
  

  by Ann Galloway. This digest looks at the communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages. It is intended as an introduction to the communicative approach for teachers and teachers-in-training who want to provide opportunities in the classroom for their students to engage in real-life communication in the target language. Questions to be dealt with include what the communicative approach is, where it came from, and how teachers' and students' roles differ from the roles they play in other teaching approaches. Examples of exercises that can be used with a communicative approach are described, and sources of appropriate materials are provided.

• Comprehensive Planning: Guidance for Educators of American Indian and Alaska Native Students

  This Digest provides brief descriptions of key federal legislation and initiatives calling for school reform. Each description is followed by a series of questions that can help American Indian and Alaska Native communities closely examine local school reform plans.

• Computer Assisted Text Scaffolding for Curriculum Access and Language Learning/Acquisition

  by Jim Cummins. This paper outlines the rationale underlying an innovative approach to computer assisted language learning that proposes to use target language text as input for learning. The text is made comprehensible to learners as a result of dictionary and learning strategy supports built into a multimedia CD-ROM design. The dictionary supports can be provided in learners' first and second languages (L1 and L2) and learning strategy supports include graphic organizers to facilitate comprehension of content as well as a variety of vocabulary building and grammar learning supports. These supports represent scaffolding that enables the learner/reader to process the meaning of texts that otherwise would have been inaccessible. Any text in electronic form can be imported into the system and used as authentic input for target language learning. Computer Assisted Text Scaffolding for Curriculum Access and Language Learning/Acquisition - Summary

• Content Assessment in the Native Language

  by Charles W. Stansfield. Not all students are able to participate in the assessment program. Typically, schools defer or exempt students from participating if they cannot speak, read, and write English. Consequently, the test results obtained by schools often give an incomplete and, sometimes, misleading picture of the quality of student achievement at the school. In schools where there are a large number of non-native English speaking students, the school may exclude all of those students from participating in the assessment program. Thus, the official reported results may have little relationship to the actual status of educational achievement in the school. This digest reviews the problem and the situation and offers solutions.

• Contextual Factors Surrounding Hispanic Dropouts

  by Hugh Mehan. The prevailing discourse poses dropping out as a failure of individuals. The purpose of this paper is to try to interrupt that discourse and to furnish a different "way of talking that can unpack, inform, critique but still imagine what could be" in public urban high schools in the United States. The different way proposed represents dropping out in social, not personal, terms, as an institutional production that reproduces the structures of inequality in the educational, economic, and civic domains of everyday life.

• Countering Prejudice Against American Indians and Alaska Natives Through Antibias Curriculum and Instruction

  by Deirdre A. Almeida. This Digest describes current inadequacies in teaching about Native Americans, even when teachers are making an effort to portray American Indians and Alaska Natives respectfully, and suggests ways to avoid common pitfalls. The Digest provides guidelines for detecting anti-Indian bias in the curriculum and offers a brief list of Native American-controlled publications and resources.

• Creating a Community of Scholarship With Instructional Conversations in a Transitional Bilingual Classroom

  by G. Genevieve Patthey-Chavez, Lindsay Clark and Ronald Gallimore. This report explores the ways in which instructional conversations between a teacher and her students contributed to building an academic community in a transitional bilingual fourth-grade classroom. Through an analysis of reading lesson transcripts, classroom events, and student essays and journal assignments, this report shows how classroom experiences fostered the development of students' understanding of the concepts of sacrifice and responsibility. This report describes how, at both the individual and classroom community level, instructional conversations deepened student understandings of the texts they read in class by encouraging students to make connections between particular textual concepts and their own experiences. In addition to tracking student gains in understanding, this report shows how the conversations helped build a classroom community that incorporated the cultural beliefs and concerns of the students.

• A Critical Period for Second Language Acquisition? A Status Review
  
  

  by Kenji Hakuta. In a recent court declaration urging that immigrant students be exposed to English as early as possible, an advocate wrote: "‹the optimal time to learn a second language is between age three and five or as soon thereafter as possible, and certainly before the onset of puberty" (Porter, 1998). Such statements derive from the critical period hypothesis for second language acquisition, the origins of which are attributable to Penfield and Roberts (1959) and more prominently perhaps to Eric Lenneberg (1967), who amassed evidence in support of the view that first language acquisition is a biologically constrained process, with a specific timetable ending at puberty. In a single paragraph of the book (p. 176), Lenneberg speculated about the implications for second language acquisition, noting that after puberty, second languages are acquired consciously and with great effort, and often not very successfully. The purpose of this paper is to make explicit the assumptions underlying this hypothesis, and to highlight what we know, and don't know, about its empirical status.

  This publication is available only in PDF format.

• Cultural Differences and the Construction of Meaning: Implications for the Leadership and Organizational Context of Schools

  Robert A. Peña investigates the relationships between student achievement, student culture and practitioners' attitudes and expectations. Student achievement was defined as academic performance but also included perceptions, rationales and explanations for student behaviors and conduct. Student culture described students' Mexican American origins, customs and beliefs. Practitioners' attitudes described how middle school personnel generally perceived Mexican American high and underachieving students, and practitioners' expectations described how personnel interacted and behaved toward Mexican American students.

• A Curriculum Discourse for Achieving Equity: Implications for Teachers When Engaged with Latina and Latino Students

  by R. Chávez Chávez. A discussion on constructing a curriculum discourse for Latina/o students. Focusing on the need for authenticity from within the community that values, respects, and dignifies the self by trusting the self for the good of self and others. The author suggests that constructing curriculum for achieving equity is an attitude that resonates from a longing to have all students think and do for themselves and others in compassionate ways rooted in respect, dignity, and high expectations.

D

• Dealing with Diversity: Some Propositions from Canadian Education

  by Benjamin Levin and J. Anthony Riffel. Increasing diversity in the population is a major issue for educators in North America, presenting political as well as educational challenges. This paper examines Canadian educational policy responses to four kinds of diversity - bilingualism (French/English), multiculturalism, the situation of aboriginal peoples, and the problem of poverty. A description of each issue leads to some speculations or propositions on the nature of diversity and appropriate educational responses to it.

• The Debate Over English Only

  The National Education Association (NEA) article on: Reasons Against English Only; NEA Resolutions; Language Inclusion History & English Only Legislation; Community Recommendations; and English Only Resources.

• The Degree that Parents and Significant Others Influence Anglo American and Mexican American Students to Pursue and Complete University Studies

  A study by A. Valencia that is intended to yield findings on the degree that significant persons in the students' lives have had in their decisions to pursue and reach higher educational attainments. Nine sources of influence were selected for this study, and the sources were of one particular type- significant persons in the students' lives who influenced them to pursue and complete university studies.

• Describing Students' Collected Works: Understanding American Indian Children
  
  

  by E. Franklin & J. Thompson. This article describes the collected written and visual works of one Dakota child, Monica, and three themes: relationships, cultural commitment, and romance visible in her works. Through a descriptive study of her works, Monica's teachers were able to understand her particular meaning-making efforts, the way in which various genres (e.g., personal narratives, realistic and romance fictional narratives, cards and letters, written and visual responses to books) supported her exploration and expression of meaning, and the struggles and tensions inherent in her creative process.

• Developing Target Second Language Skills Through Problem-Solving Activities in Mathematics

  by L. Radford, J. Netten, and G. Duquette. This article provides classroom teachers with clear directions and specific classroom strategies which will enable students to develop target second language skills through the teaching of mathematics. Students learn a number of problem-solving strategies and they apply these strategies to specific, real context situations using arithmetic and algebraic formulas. Students are encouraged to co-operate and communicate in finding solutions to the mathematical problems they face and thus develop communications skills related to the problem-solving activities.

  NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  
  

• Development of a Research Agenda for the Education of Limited-English Proficient and Bilingual Students

  by: Hakuta, Banks, Christian, Durán, Kaestle, Kenny, Leinhardt, Ortiz, Hinojosa, Lucinda Pease-Alvarez, & Snow. The Committee to Develop a Research Agenda for the Education of Limited-English-Proficient and Bilingual Students was convened to undertake a comprehensive review and synthesis of research on the education of limited English-proficient and bilingual students an recommend research needs and priorities for the future. A report of the committee's work, Improving Schooling for Language Minority Children: A Research Agenda, was published in early 1997. A second report published in February 1998, Educating Language-Minority Children summarizes for teachers and education policymakers what has been learned over the past three decades about educating language-minority students.

• Dialect Education: Not Only for Oakland

  by C. T. Adger. This digest suggests that under-informed about what dialects are, how they relate to each other, and what functions they fulfill, people have voiced views about language in society that cannot be scientifically justified.
  
  

• Digital Divide Persists

  by Courtney Macavinta. Although more Americans are getting online, race and class lines still are sharply segregating those who have access, according to a report issued today by the Commerce Department. In the agency's third annual look at the so-called digital divide between technology "haves" and "have-nots," the 1998 data shows that those living in rural areas and those at the lowest income levels have much less access to computers and Net connections in comparison to upper-income households in urban areas. Although 40 percent of U.S. households were online last year, there is a perpetuating trend in which whites are on the Net at a much greater rate than African Americans, Latinos, or those of Asian/Pacific Islander descent, according to the report, Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide, which is based on U.S. Census data.

• Diversifying the Teaching Force: Preparing Paraeducators as Teachers

  This digest by Michael Genzuk suggests that the nation's nearly 500,000 paraeducators working in K-12 classrooms embody a promising source of prospective teachers. Paraeducator-to-teacher programs capitalize on the attributes that paraeducators bring to the program and the program streamlines their pathway into teaching. Studies suggest that paraeducator-to-teacher program graduates bring a wealth of community and student knowledge to their practice, attributes that are highly regarded in today's diverse classrooms.
  
  

• The Dropout Argument

  by Stephen Krashen. Critics of bilingual education have cited the high Hispanic dropout rate as evidence against bilingual education. Since most bilingual programs are Spanish English, it is concluded that bilingual education must be responsible. This note reviews what is known about dropout rates among Hispanic students.

• Drop-Out Rates Among American Indian and Alaska Native Students: Beyond Cultural Discontinuity

  by Richard St. Germaine. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students regularly face obstacles that can impede their progress in school. Educational theorists and researchers have provided various explanations for this high failure rate, each with its own set of prescriptions. Recently, much attention has focused on cultural discontinuity. This Digest suggests that addressing cultural obstacles is an important but incomplete approach to increasing AI/AN students' success.
  

E

• Early Reading Instruction, Non-English Language Background, and Schooling Achievement

  by H. Molina, D. Farrell Siegel, and R. A. Hanson. This paper presents the results of several related studies that examine the relationship among early reading instruction, non-English language background, and the schooling achievement of high school seniors. Collectively, these studies challenge the current thinking about when students should begin receiving formal reading instruction, and that being from a non-English language background (NELB) is generally synonymous with being academically disadvantaged. To the contrary, they indicated that NELB students, particularly those who are provided with early reading instruction, are generally not at a disadvantage in terms of standard education measures taken in high school. That is, after controlling for social class and family size, being from a non-English language background probably has positive effects on the general achievement levels of children. These findings add support to bilingual programs utilizing NELB language and cultural assets.

• Easy Does It: Introducing Pupils to Bilingual Instruction

  by Glenn Ole Hellekjaer. Bilingual instruction is the Council of Europe's preferred term for teaching content in a foreign language. This article looks at some of the ways in which bilingual instruction differs from foreign language and subject-matter instruction, and what this means for teaching. It pays particular attention to the process of introducing upper-secondary school pupils to this novel form of instruction, and offers practical suggestions on how to teach and organize such a class. Next it looks at how foreign language and subject-matter instruction can help or hinder bilingual instruction. Last, it discusses briefly the need for a whole school policy to support a bilingual program.
  
  

• Ebonics and Culturally Responsive Instruction

  by Lisa Delpit. This article takes a closer look at some of the connections between language, teaching and cultural identity.

• The Ebonics Controversy in My Backyard: A Sociolinguist's Experiences and Reflections

  by John R. Rickford. A Sociolinguists, from the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University, discussion of the controversial language debate on Ebonics.

• The Ecology of a Chicano Student at Risk

  The objective of this case study by M. Seda and D. J. Bixler-Marquez was to identify, in a holistic manner, the individual, aggregate, and interactive effect of socioeconomic status (SES), cultural, psychosocial, and academic factors that shaped the at-risk status of a Chicano fourth grader. A prescriptive dimension of the study was to provide a set of recommendations that could be used to place the subject on the path of academic and social recovery.

• Educating All Our Students: Improving Education for Children from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds

  by Barry McLaughlin & Beverly McLeod. Researchers at the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning have identified instructional strategies that are effective for educating students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. They have also studied reform efforts that have important lessons for the school, the teacher, and the classroom. This research has a bearing on how schools can be organized and how teachers can teach to meet the needs of all their students.

• Educating Teachers for Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: A Model for All Teachers

  All educators must face the reality of culturally and linguistically diverse students in today's classrooms according to author JoAnn Parla. School districts which never before had to instruct these students are now finding they must meet this need. Often, the number of bilingually trained personnel in these areas is limited. This article discusses issues related to the multicultural classroom. It presents a teacher-training component that includes information on cultural sensitivity, linguistic diversity, and teaching strategies.

• The Education of Latino Students: Is School Reform Enough?

  by Henry Trueba & Lilia Bartolomé. This digest provides a critique of the various educational strategies that have been used with Latino students, and suggests alternatives that may prove more effective. Interestingly, some of the recommendations included here were first made nearly 20 years ago, but they have not yet been widely implemented.

• The Education of Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students: Effective Instructional Practices

  by Eugene Garcia. This report suggests that linguistically and culturally diverse students can achieve academic success when provided with appropriate instruction tailored to meet their specific needs. Recent research has documented effective instructional practices used with students from homes and communities where English is not the primary language of communication. These descriptive studies identified specific schools and classrooms whose language minority students were particularly successful academically.

• An Educator's Guide to Evaluating The Use of Technology in Schools and Classrooms

  Evaluating educational technology programs can be a challenging endeavor. This guide represents a joint effort among the U.S. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the Office of Educational Technology, and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. The guide should be viewed as a tool for individuals who have little or no formal training in research or evaluation. Its intended informal style and accompanying worksheets provide the basic principles of evaluation and are designed to help district and school personnel gain an overview of and ideas for evaluating local technology initiatives. The guide is not meant to be the key to conducting a perfect evaluation. Rather, the goal of this handbook is to provide educators a resource with which to jump into the evaluation process, learning as they go.
  
  

• Effective Dropout Prevention and College Attendance Programs for Latino Students

  by O.S. Fashola & R. E. Slavin. Over the past ten years a number of programs designed to affect dropout rates and related outcomes have been implemented and evaluated in middle and high schools serving many Latino students. Collectively, these studies show that schools can make a dramatic difference in the dropout rates, school success, and college enrollment rates of at-risk Latino youth. The purpose of the paper is to review research on programs of this kind.

• Effective Instructional Conversation in Native American Classrooms
  
  

  by Roland G. Tharp and Lois A.Yamauchi. Instructional conversation (IC) is a dialog between teacher and learner in which prior knowledge and experiences are woven together with new material to build higher understanding. IC contrasts with the "recitation script" of traditional western schooling, which is highly routinized and dominated by the teacher. IC varies in form in different cultures, as do other discourse forms. Analysis of the research on the formal and informal learning of American Indians lends insight into possible ways in which instructional conversations in classrooms with these children can be modified to promote learning. Effective instructional conversations for Native Americans are influenced by four basic psychocultural factors identified by Tharp (1989): a) sociolinguistics; b) motivation; c) cognition; and d) social organization. These factors are implicated in activity settings that are more likely to produce effective ICs in Native American classrooms. "Ideal" activity settings--those most likely to produce and maintain ICs for Native American students are proposed and illustrated in this article.

• Effective Language Education Practices and Native Language Survival
  
  

  edited by Jon Reyhner. Effective Language Education Practices and Native Language Survival is the proceedings of the Ninth Annual International Native American Language Issues (NALI) Institute co-sponsored by the NALI Board of Executors and the Montana Association for Bilingual Education and held in Billings, Montana, June 8 & 9, 1989.

• Effective Programs for Latino Students in Elementary and Middle Schools

  by Olatokunbo S. Fashola, Robert E. Slavin, Margarita Calderón, and Richard Durán. The focus of this review is on the identification of programs that have been shown to be effective in rigorous evaluations, that are replicable across a broad range of elementary and middle schools, and that have been successfully evaluated or at least frequently applied to schools serving many Latino students.

• The Effect of Age on Acquisition of a Second Language for School

  by Virginia P. Collier. This article reviews a number of studies, including the author's own recently completed one, that point to an advantage which children in middle childhood appear to have over younger children and adolescents in formally acquiring a second language.

• The Effects of Electronic Mail on Spanish L2 Discourse

  by Manuela González-Bueno. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of using e-mail as a tool to promote foreign language learning in and out of the classroom. The study identifies the following features of the foreign language generated through the electronic medium, some of which have already been observed in previous studies: (a) greater amount of language; (b) more variety of topics and language functions; (c) higher level of language accuracy; (d) more similarity with oral language; (e) more student-initiated interactions; and (f) more personal and expressive language use. These observations are expected to expand the generalizations made in previous studies, and more finely tune theoretical propositions, about how to integrate electronic communication in the classroom in order to facilitate foreign language learning.

• e-Lective Language Learning: Design of a Computer-Assisted Text-Based ESL/EFL Learning System

  by Jim Cummins. The "e-Lective Language Learning" system described in this paper proposes to use target language text as input for language learning by incorporating a variety of L1 and L2 dictionary and learning strategy supports into a multimedia CD ROM design. Any text in electronic form can be imported into the system and used as authentic input for target language learning. The built-in supports permit learners to comprehend text that would otherwise have been inaccessible. As considerable research has demonstrated, the more target language text learners read and comprehend, the more of the target language they learn.

• Electronic Collaboration: A Practical Guide for Educators

  This full-text guide features an 11-step process for making online collaborative projects successful. Offerings include: explanations of various kinds of online collaborations -- discussion groups, data collection and organization, document sharing, synchronous communication, and online workshops and courses, tools and websites that can be resources for creating each of these forms of collaborative environments, and tips for moderating online collaborations. Examples of school-based online collaborations appear throughout the guide, which was produced by the Northeast & Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University, the National School Network, & the Teacher Enhancement Electronic Community Hall.

  You can download/view the full report in a PDF file also.

  NOTE: To read this article in PDF format you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  
  

• Electronic Text and English as a Second Language Environments

  by Carla Meskill, Jonathan Mossop, Richard Bates. School-age children for whom English is not the native language have immediate and critical needs regarding English language and literacy. The majority of these children are not in any of the nation's bilingual programs. Thus they are restricted in their participation in academic activity during the period needed for their second language and literacy acquistion, a period which is typically from five to seven years. During this time, English as a Second Language (ESL) learners receive instruction in second language and literacy through specialized English as a second language instruction as well as "incidentally" in regular mainstream classroom classes. Providing opportunities for ESL learners to develop English language and literacy skills is a continual challenge and concern for schools. Recent interest in technologies as a means of supporting language development has brought ESL teaching professionals around the country to include computers, multimedia, and telecommunications as tools for instruction. In addition to ESL-specific instruction, non-ESL or mainstream teachers are coming to view these technologies as a means by which ESL learners who cannot otherwise participate in class activities can be actively involved in language and literacy practice.

  NOTE: To read this article in PDF format you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  
  

• EL INTERNET: Una Guía Para Padres de Familia

  Escrito por el Departamento de Educación de los Estados Unidos, esta guía sobre el Internet para padres de familia tiene como fin ayudar a los padres‹sin importar su nivel de conocimientos tecnológicos‹a utilizar el mundo en línea como una importante herramienta educativa. La guía simplifica la abrumadora cantidad de información para los consumidores y ofrece a los padres una introducción al Internet y la forma de navegar por él. La Guía sugiera la forma en que los padres pueden permitir a sus hijos explorar los prodigios del Internet al mismo tiempo que los protegen de sus peligros potenciales.

• Embracing Ebonics and Teaching Standard English: An Interview with Oakland Teacher
  
  

  by Carrie Secret. This 31-year veteran of Oakland classrooms explains the effects of the Standard English Proficiency program, which recognizes the systematic, rule-governed nature of "Black English" while helping students learn Standard English, and how respect and cultural awareness can help teachers reach their students.

• Emphasis on Equity: The Calexico School District's Secondary-Level Strategies for Hispanic Youth

  by A.T. Lockwood. In this document attention focuses on secondary-level curricular strategies that have been successful in not only significantly diminishing the dropout rate of Hispanic students, but also accomplishing a variety of other worthwhile goals. It features the educational strategies of the Calexico School District in Calexico.

• Endangered Native American Languages: What Is to Be Done, and Why?

  by James Crawford. The threat to linguistic resources is now recognized as a worldwide crisis. As many as half of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken on earth are spoken only by adults who no longer teach them to the next generation. An additional 40 percent may soon be threatened because the number of children learning them is declining measurably. In other words, 90 percent of existing languages today are likely to die or become seriously embattled within the next century. In formulating a response to this crisis, there are three questions that need to be explored: (1) What causes language decline and extinction? (2) Can the process be reversed? And (3) why should we concern ourselves with this problem? This articlel looks in detail at the situation of Native American languages in the United States.
  
  

• English Literacy in the U.S.: National Policies, Personal Consequences

  by S. L. Mckay and G. Weinstein-Shr. This article examines the relationship between U.S. national policies on literacy, available literacy programs, and individual lives. Beginning with a discussion of the expanding role of English literacy in U.S. immigration policies, this article examines the pressures to become literate in English with consideration given to the resources that are available to do so. Language use in immigrant families is discussed with a focus on native language loss and the consequences of this loss for intergenerational relationships. The article concludes with suggestions for an approach to literacy in which the links between national policies and personal lives are made explicit.

• Enhancing Education Opportunities for Hispanic Students Who are Deaf

  An article by M. Smith looking at the unique challenge being faced by Hispanic students who are hearing impaired. The purpose of this article is to review some basic facts about hearing impairment then discuss the effects this disability can have on Hispanic students. Specific suggestions are offered for meeting the needs of these students and their families.

• Ensuring Academic Success for Hispanic Students: Three Elementary School Programs

  by A.T. Lockwood. To bond Hispanic students to schools and prepare them for productive roles as citizens in a democratic society, school staff need to familiarize themselves with the many outstanding programs available to strengthen their current instructional and social agenda, and to implement programs best suited to the individual needs of their student populations. Many demonstrably effective programs at the elementary or middle level already are flourishing in schools around the country. This article focuses on three of those programs: Success for All, the HOSTS Program (Helping One Student To Succeed), and Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). This article illustrates what each of the three programs looks like in application.

• ESL Instruction in Adult Education: Findings from a National Evaluation

  by Nicholas B. Fitzgerald. This digest summarizes findings of the NEAEP that are pertinent to English as a second language (ESL) literacy education, including a profile of the ESL population served by adult education, the nature of ESL program participation, the impact of ESL instruction, and estimates of both current and future demand for ESL services.

• ESL Versus Mainstream Classes: Contrasting L2 Learning Environments
  
  

  by Linda Harklau. Language minority students are often placed in mainstream, English medium classrooms long before they develop the degree of language proficiency necessary to compete on an equal footing with native speakers of the school language. With the ever-increasing presence of such students in U.S. schools, ESL and content are educators are working to better integrate their respective curricula and instructional roles. In order to accomplish this integration, significant instructional difference in these two contexts must be identified, and systematic comparisons must detail how L2 learners fare in each of these instructional environments. What do students lose and gain in their transition from ESL to the mainstream? This question was addressed in a 3 1/2 year ethnography of the L2 learning experiences of newcomer students attending a high school in northern California.

• Evaluation of English Language Development Programs in the Santa Ana Unified School District

  by Douglas E. Mitchell, Tom Destino, and Rita Karam. Summary of the report on data system reliability and statisticfal modeling of program impacts in the Santa Ana Unified School District's English language development and bilingual programs.

• Expert and Novice Teachers Talking Technology: Precepts, Concepts, and Misconcepts

  by C. Meskill, J. Mossop, S. DiAngelo, and R.K. Pasquale. This study compares and contrasts the "technology talk" of novice and expert teachers of K-8 language and literacy (ESOL). Interview data with eight teachers - two expert (experienced teachers and technologies users), five novice (limited experience in teaching and teaching with computers) and one transitional expert (experienced teacher and non-technology user) serve to illustrate the conceptual and practical differences between those who have adapted technologies as powerful teaching and learning tools and teachers who, in spite of specific formal training in instructional technology, speak about it and its application in starkly contrasting ways. These contrasts are presented as a set of four conceptual continua that can help in explicating novice starting points, transitional issues, and the expertise of computer-using language professionals.

  NOTE: To read this article in PDF format you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

F

• Facilitating Postsecondary Outcomes for Mexican Americans

  by Judith LeBlanc Flores. Postsecondary outcomes for Mexican Americans have not improved measurably since the mid-1980s. Although Hispanic students are attending and graduating from college in greater numbers, much of this growth is linked directly to their population growth. Despite increased representation among undergraduates and college graduates, Hispanic students complete college at a lower rate than the general student population. This digest addresses those factors that may facilitate postsecondary outcomes for Hispanic students, particularly Mexican-American students, who enroll in U.S. community colleges and 4-year institutions.

• Family Involvement In Asian/Pacific Education
  
  

  ERIC abstracts on family involvement of Asian/Pacific Islanders. Most of the documents and journal articles have been entered into the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. Links to ERIC Abstracts provide detailed ordering information.

• Federal Policy, Legislation, and Education Reform: The Promise and the Challenge for Language Minority Students

  by Kris Anstrom and Anneka Kindler. Issues related to the education of language minority students need to be understood within the context of educational reform as exemplified in the recent passage of three ground breaking pieces of legislation, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), and the School-to Work Opportunities Act. All three pieces of legislation require that new linkages be formed across old programatic boundaries, between local educational agencies (LEAs), state education agencies (SEAs), institutions of higher education (IHEs), and the federal government, and between community-based organizations and the schools. Knowledge of the issues and legislation on the part of those concerned with the education of language minority students and their involvement in all levels of the reform effort will help determine whether language minority students benefit from the reform movement. The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of the issues and legislation pertinent to the attainment of educational equity and excellence for language minority students.

• Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early-Exit and Late-Exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language-Minority Children

  This is the Executive Summary of the Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early-Exit and Late-Exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language-Minority Children, February 1991, as prepared for the United States Department of Education under contract no. 300-87-0156.

• From College to First-Year Teaching How the United States Compares to Several Other Countries

  U.S. Department of Education report. Up to one-third of new U.S. teachers leave the profession within the first few years. One reason for this "wastage" of teaching resources, according to the Commission, is our typical "sink-or-swim" attitude toward teacher induction. In contrast, new teachers in some other countries are provided with resources and guidance that help them to make a successful transition from being students themselves to becoming self-confident, skilled professional teachers. This paper reviews a cross-national study of teacher induction practices.

• Forging Partnerships Between Mexican American Parents and the Schools

  by Nancy Feyl Chavkin and Dora Lara Gonzalez. According to the Bureau of the Census (1994), there are approximately 13 million Mexican Americans in the United States. In reviews of the status of education for Mexican American students it is reported that there is a decline in high school completion rates, a steady rise in the dropout rate, and high numbers of students two or more years behind grade level. This digest describes research supporting family participation in students' education. It then describes barriers to participation faced by many Mexican American parents and successful programs and strategies for overcoming those barriers. Finally, the benefits of two-way communication and school-family partnerships are described.

• From Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students: Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim

  Edited by Jay Moskowitz and Maria Stephens, this publication is the result of the second phase of a study on teacher training and professional development sponsored by APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). Phase I of the study described teacher preparation systems across APEC members, to identify key issues and challenges for teacher preparation and professional development, and to identify promising practices for the future of teacher preparation. The findings of Phase II, focusing on policy and practices of teacher induction in 11 participating APEC members, are presented here.

• Full Text of Ebonics' Resolution Adopted by Oakland Board of Education - December 18, 1996
  
  

  Resolution of the board of education adopting the report and recommendations of the African-American Task Force; a policy statement and directing the superintendent of schools to devise a program to improve the English-language acquisition and application skills of African-American students.
  
  

• Funds of Knowledge: A Look at Luis Moll's Research Into Hidden Family Resources

  This work was done in collaboration with Norma Gonzalez, James Greenberg, and Carlos Velez. How can committed city teachers boost the literacy skills of their poor, minority students? According to some educational researchers, the answer lies in a more "sociocultural" approach to literacy instruction.

• Funds of Knowledge for Teaching

  Funds of Knowledge for Teaching" (FKT) is a project of the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the College of Education at the University of Arizona. At the core of this project is a notion of culture as a dynamic entity--a way of using social, physical, spiritual, and economic resources to make one's way in the world. In FKT, anthropologists, teacher educators, and teachers learn about the funds of knowledge possessed by students and their families in order to gain insight about connections among ordinary curricular goals and students' experience in the community. Together they devise new academic materials, strategies, and activities that build more sturdily on what students know and can do outside of school.

• Funds of Knowledge: Learning from Language Minority Households

  by N. González, L. C. Moll, M. Floyd-Tenery, A. Rivera, P. Rendón, R. Gonzales, and C. Amanti. This Digest describes a research model that has shown that classroom practice can be developed, transformed, and enriched by drawing upon the existing funds of knowledge in minority students' households. Funds of knowledge refers to those historically developed and accumulated strategies (e.g., skills, abilities, ideas, practices) or bodies of knowledge that are essential to a household's functioning and well-being. Through participant-observer visits to minority student households, researchers and teachers became aware of these funds of knowledge.

G

• A Guide to Communicating With Asian American Families

  by Wendy Schwartz. The enrollment of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) students is increasing drastically, so it is important for school and community people to learn how to communicate with API families. Since APIs communicate very differently from native-born Americans and other immigrants, this guide describes how the backgrounds and cultures of the various API groups affect their attitudes and behavior.

  
  

• A Guide to Culture in the Classroom

  by Muriel Saville-Troike. This discussion of the role of culture in the bilingual classroom explores the relationship of language, culture, and education. It provides in service and pre-service training procedures for developing cultural competencies in bilingual educators; and suggests applications of cultural information to classroom practices, curriculum development, and evaluation. These concepts and methods may prove useful not only in bilingual programs, but for improving equal educational opportunity for all minority-group students, and for all those commonly labeled the 'disadvantaged'.

• A Guide to Family Reading in Two Languages: The Preschool Years

  by Theodore Andersson. This article focuses attention on bilingual children between birth and age five and considers their potential desire and ability to learn to read not only one but often two languages before entering kindergarten or first grade. The main focus of the study is family reading. This is a particularly rich field of study; for, whether the family under consideration is a small nuclear or large extended family, the number and ages of the children, the presence or absence of grandparents or other relatives, the particular relationships among the family members, and the time available for reading provide an almost infinite number of variables and possibilities.

H

• Has Whole Language Failed?

  by Stephen Krashen. The "failure" of whole language in California has been widely reported. The author attempts to give a clear definition of whole language, discuss some of the research, and provide some information about the impact of whole language in California.

  You can download/view the full report in a PDF file also.
  
  

  To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• The Hazards of Changing Schools for California Latino Adolescents

  by R. W. Rumberger, K. A. Larson, G. J. Palardy, R. K. Ream, and N. C. Schleicher. This report examines student mobility among California Latino adolescents. Student mobility may be especially important in California because of its highly mobile population. Latinos are the largest and fastest growing segment of the state population. According to California Department of Finance estimates, the Latino public-school population is projected to triple in size between 1986 and 2006, while the non-Latino white population is projected to decrease. Consequently, if student mobility can be problematic for both students and schools, as previous research suggests, it is especially important to understand the nature of mobility among the Latino population.

• Helping Teachers Teach Well: Transforming Professional Development

  This policy briefs by T. B. Corcoran reviews what is known about professional development, where it is now, and where it needs to be. The brief discusses its organization, costs, and effects on practice. It also suggests some principles to guide professional development in the future and offers a framework for designing and assessing policies and programs.
  
  

• Hispanic College Students Broaden Vistas

  by Joseph Torres. Under a cloud of new affirmative-action turmoil in higher education, the class of 2001 is arriving on campus -- but for Hispanics, the figures we've been reading in the papers aren't the only story. Other numbers, fed by immigration and determination, add up to brighter prospects for the nation's 32 million Latinos. As Latino students matriculate and choose their majors, they can be found venturing into fields that not so long ago were deemed out of reach. Degrees earned by Hispanics in just about every field are dramatically increasing, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education.

• Hispanic Preschool Education: An Important Overview

  by Wendy Schwartz. This digest describes strategies and programs specially designed to meet the early education needs of Hispanic children, particularly those whose families suffer from poverty. It also reviews efforts to recruit the children; to involve their parents in activities that will enhance their children's learning; and to provide parents with literacy, job, and other skills training, and a range of social services.
  
  

• The Hmong Literacy Project: Parents Working to Preserve the Past and Ensure the Future

  Hee-Won Kang, P. Keuhn, and A. Herrellby Hee-Won Kang's article suggests that for some adults, the development of literacy may be a practical matter of economic advancement or survival. For others, it may be a matter of broader concerns such as preservation of a culture and helping to brighten the future of their children. The Hmong Literacy Project, funded by the National Institute for Literacy, encompassed all of these concerns.This article is a description of the implementation and some of the results of the project.

• How Long Does It Take English Learners to Attain Proficiency?

  By K. Hakuta, Y. G. Butler and D. Witt. One of the most commonly asked questions about the education of language minority students is how long they need special services, such as English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and bilingual education. The purpose of this paper is to pull together findings that directly address this question. This study reports on data from four different school districts to draw conclusions on how long it takes students to develop oral and academic English proficiency.

  This publication is available only in PDF format.
  
  

• How Paraeducators Build Cultural Bridges In Diverse Classrooms
  
  

  by Robert Rueda and Carmen DeNeve. In their efforts to accommodate cultural diversity in the classroom, schools have taken a variety of approaches - few of them ideal. In this article, the authors examine how educators can use the "funds of knowledge" available in culturally diverse families and communities to build bridges between the home cultures of students and the cultures of their schools.

• How to Recognize Excellent Educational Software

  by E. C. De Laurentiis. The author of this article proposes criteria to create excellent learning environments with computers. Many of these criteria apply to good education no matter what the learning device. He also suggests that despite its promise, and the vision of many futurists, technology has yet to make its mark on education.

I

• "I 'on Know Why They Be Trippin'"

  by Theresa Perry. An essay on the political furor that greeted the Oakland School Board's resolution on Ebonics, and some of the issues that were glossed over during the noisy national debate that followed.

• If Ebonics Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?

  by Wayne O'Neil. A linguist addresses some of the more common questions about Ebonics and the Oakland School Board resolution, and some of the misconceptions about the resolution spread by the mainstream media.

• Immersion Education for the Millenium: What We Have Learned from 30 Years of Research on Second Language Immersion

  by Jim Cummins. The term "immersion education" came to prominence in Canada during the 1960s to describe innovative programs in which the French language was used as a medium of instruction for elementary school students whose home language was English. However, as Johnson and Swain (1997) point out, there is nothing new in the phenomenon of "immersing" students in a second language (L2) instructional environment. In fact, throughout the history of formal education the use of an L2 as a medium of instruction has been the rule rather than the exception. The Canadian French immersion programs, however, were the first to be subjected to intensive long-term research evaluation, although some large-scale research had been undertaken in other contexts prior to the Canadian experience.

• The Impact of Call Instruction on Classroom Computer Use: A Foundation for Rethinking Technology in Teacher Education

  by J. Egbert, T. M. Paulus, Y. Nakamichi. The purpose of this study is to examine how language teachers apply practical experiences from computer-assisted language learning (CALL) coursework to their teaching. It also examines ways in which teachers continue their CALL professional development.

  NOTE: To read this article in PDF format you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Importance of Background Knowledge in Second-Language Learning

  by Lily Wong Fillmore. Just as readers must apply their linguistic knowledge to the interpretation of the texts they read, so too must they make use of their knowledge of the world and their prior experiences in reading. The author argues that the education of children irrespective of their background would be greatly diminished if educators were to choose materials for them that were in any way narrowed or lowered in level because of putative deficiencies in the children's backgrounds. Such decisions must take into account the role that authentic and challenging materials play in building students' background and in supporting language development. Children and adolescents also gain the very kind of background that they need to have, to deal with materials they read in school, from the literature and textbooks they have already read.

• Improving Opportunities: Strategies of the Secretary of Education for Hispanic and Limited English Proficient Students
  
  

  The strategies in this booklet aim at meeting the unique educational needs of Hispanic and LEP students in the context of this emphasis on high standards and high achievement. The strategies in this booklet reflect the priority the Department of Education places on the education of Hispanic and LEP students and respond to the recommendations proposed by the President's Advisory Commission, the Hispanic Dropout Project, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

  NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

  
  

• Infusing Technology into Preservice Teacher Education

  This Digest examines the relationship between K-12 teachers' use of computer-based technologies to deliver and support classroom instruction and the training provided to prospective teachers by teacher education institutions. It offers an overview of obstacles faced by teacher educators in providing appropriate technology instruction and outlines approaches to addressing these obstacles.

• Inner City Life Through Drama: Imagining the Language Classroom

  by Shirley Brice Heath. Both language learning theorists and practitioners of teaching English as a second language or dialect have argued that role playing moves language learners beyond their usual performance in ordinary classroom presentations. This paper tells the story of how inner city youth organizations use dramas that young people write, cast, and direct to enable them to retain their first language or dialect while gaining standard English and preparing for job entry. The story ends with implications for the language classroom.

• Instructional Conversations in Native American Classrooms
  
  

  by Ronald Tharp and Lois Yamauchi. Research indicates that the instructional conversation (IC) can be an effective method for raising the low academic achievement levels of various groups of Native American students. The IC is a dialog between teacher and learner in which prior knowledge and experiences are woven together with new material to build higher understanding. A description of factors and their role in implementing ICs among Native American populations is discussed.

• The Instructional Conversation: Teaching and Learning in Social Activity

  by Roland Tharp and Ron Gallimore. Newly understood through the principles of socio historical theory, real teaching is understood as assisting the learner to perform just beyond his or her current capacity. This assistance in the "zone of proximal development" awakens and rouses to life the mental capacities of learners of all ages. This assistance is best provided through the instructional conversation, a dialogue between teacher and learners in which the teacher listens carefully to grasp the students" communicative intent, and tailors the dialogue to meet the emerging understanding of the learners.

• Instructional Strategies for Teachers of Limited-English-Proficient Students: A Bibliography

  by James A. Vasquez et al. This bibliography, with 310 references, is a good sampling of the literature that is currently available and includes practices that many educators have found lead to successful teaching of LEP students. The bibliography provides a beginning point for those interested in bilingual and ESL instructional settings.

• Integrating Language and Content: Lessons From Immersion

  by Fred Genesee. Among the most interesting and effective innovations in second language education during the last three decades have been the immersion programs developed in Canada. The first immersion programs were developed to provide Canada's majority group English-speaking students with opportunities to learn Canada's other official language. Since that time, immersion programs have been adopted in many different areas of North America, and alternative forms of immersion have been devised. This report presents a selective review of research findings from the extensive evaluations that have been undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of immersion programs in Canada and the United States. It focuses on selected aspects of second language learning and discusses implications of immersion research findings for the design and development of second language programs in other school settings for other kinds of learners.

• Integrating Language and Culture In Middle School American History Classes

  by Deborah J. Short. This report describes preliminary findings from a study examining middle school American history classes with English language learners. The study has investigated the construction of social studies knowledge in these classes and the development and implementation of lessons that address the cultural and educational backgrounds of the learners while integrating language, content, and culture objectives. Attention is paid to teacher accommodations, student oral and written participation, and the infusion of multicultural issues and perspectives.

• Integrating Technology into Minority Langugage Preservation and Teaching Efforts: An Inside Job

  by D.J. Villa. The recent explosion in technology, in particular in computer and digitizing systems, has many implications for heritage language maintenance and learning. In particular, authentic language usage can be easily recorded and preserved for those goals. That same explosion, however, can lead to a less than appropriate implementation of technology for language maintenance and learning. Further, certain cultural boundaries can make it difficult to have access to authentic language usage, particularly by out-group individuals who work on indigenous languages. This paper presents a pilot study that attempts to both implement technology in an appropriate manner and surmount the problems faced by out-group language researchers by training an in-group member, in this case a speaker of Navajo, in the methodology and technology necessary for recording and preserving her heritage language. The results of this work are discussed, as well as the role of computer and digitizing technology in language maintenance and teaching.

  NOTE: To read this article in PDF format you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• The Internet and the Humanities: The Human Side of Networking

  by Margaret Riel. Current developments in communication technology now provide new options for students to extend themselves across distances and through time. This technology invites children to leap off the "shoulders of giants" onto satellites and use this global perspective to participate in new ways with their peers and other experts in distant locations. It is possible that these experiences will help make the power or the written word more apparent to new generation of citizens This paper on the Internet and the humanities focuses on the human side of networking. How do classrooms change when they are part of a global network like the Internet? What future images of schooling can we see from the vantage point of satellites? The paper is organized around two general topics followed by some reservations about technological solutions and problems.

• An Introduction To Educational Technology

  by Matthew Soska. For many years, teachers used the computer to provide supplemental or additive exercises. In recent years, advances in computer technology have motivated teachers to reassess the computer and consider it an integral part of daily learning. Today, technology gives teachers the capacity to significantly enhance their students' language and cognitive development. They can utilize the technologies briefly described here for instructional testing and assessment; to teach culture; to help students learn academic content and develop critical thinking skills; and to expand students' speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills.

J

• Junior Historians: Doing Oral History with ESL and Bilingual Students

  by Irma M. Olmedo. Teaching social studies to bilingual or ESL students in the U. S. can create both linguistic and cultural difficulties. Because social studies textbooks and materials use abstract vocabulary, teachers need to develop comprehensible examples for students with limited English skills and information retrieval skills and a knowledge base to make the curriculum content accessible. Many teachers are already rethinking the way the social studies is taught in order to find ways to make the subject more interesting and comprehensible to students. One approach helps students understand that history is filled with stories. By employing oral history approaches with bilingual and ESL students, teachers can "bring history home" and help students understand that history is not just something that happened long ago and now lives only in their textbooks, but rather that they and their communities are players on the historical stage.

L

• Language Choice and Global Learning Networks: The Pitfall of Lingua Franca Approaches to Classroom Telecomputing

  by Dennis Sayers. How can other languages be used in conjunction with English to further intercultural and multilingual learning when teachers and students participate in computer-based global learning networks? Two portraits are presented of multilingual activities in the Orillas and I*EARN learning networks, and are discussed as examples of the principal modalities of communication employed in networking projects between distant classes.

• Language Becomes War by Other Means

  by Clayton Collins of The Christian Science Monitor. This article suggests that language has long been equated with cultural clout - the "perfect instrument of empire," as Spain's Queen Isabella was said to have been told by an adviser. Today, the world's empires may be in retreat but active movements to leverage language for power have surged worldwide. This article provides a world wide perspective to language policy for political power.

• Language Loyalties: The Question of Minority Language Rights

  What would be the legal impact of an English Language Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? This excerpt from Language Loyalties: A Source Book On The Official English Controversy, by James Crawford gives a detailed overview of the historical and legal precedents to explore this question.

• Language Minority Children in a Third Language Immersion Context: Evidence for Educational Enrichment
  
  

  by Kellie Rolstad. This study examines the effects of Korean/English two-way immersion on third language speakers who received no first language support, and includes assessments of self-concept, ethnic identification, academic progress and language proficiency. The effects of this third language immersion experience on these language minority children were assessed longitudinally, ending during the children's sixth and final year in the program, as well as cross-sectionally in comparison with similar children in other programs. The findings show that, except for the tendency for first language ability to decline among the third language children, the immersion experience has not been detrimental to the third language children, and hence that third language immersion may, in fact, constitute a source of educational enrichment despite the lack of first language support. These findings suggest that submersion damage is likely related to what I call "sociolinguistic status" rather than to supposed linguistic deficits incurred as a result of a home/school language switch. The implications of this study, while only suggestive, provide further evidence of the social causes of submersion damage, and support the feasibility of immersion education for third language speakers as a form of educational enrichment, provided that the children have at least a basic proficiency in the majority language.

• Language Minority Education in the United States: Implications of the Ramirez Report
  
  

  by Courtney B. Cazden. Controversy continues over the most reasonable conclusions to draw from the accumulated research evidence on the effectiveness of various program models for students who are not proficient in English. This paper examines a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Education on three program models for language minority children: structured English immersion strategy and early-exit and late-exit bilingual education.

• Learner Contributions to Knowledge, Community, and Learning

  by Beverly Hunter and John Richards. The nature of work and learning in our knowledge-based society and economy requires active participation by individuals and groups in the construction of knowledge. Active construction of knowledge, participation in collaborative learning, and building on learners' interests and experiences outside of school are major threads in educational reform and new curriculum standards. This paper provides examples of student work that not only demonstrates their own learning as young "knowledge" workers, but also makes a contribution to their community, to the learning of others, and to the base of knowledge available on the Internet.

• LINGO JINGO English-Only and the New Nativism

  by Geoffrey Nunberg. This essay suggests that the story told by the English-only movement is nonsense from beginning to end. No language was ever less in need of official protection.

• Linguistic Diversity and Reform: Can Practices be Identified?

  This 1997 paper, authored by Adel Nadeau, draws on the author's experiences leading a major school reform effort in an urban elementary school with a large limited English proficient (LEP) student population. The discussion offers insights into successful reform practices premised on the language and academic needs of LEP students. The context for reform as it existed at the author's school is presented first. Pedagogical premises that apply to programs for LEP students are outlined next, followed by the reform practices.
  
  

• Linguistic Society Of America Statement On Language Rights

  In this Statement, the Society addresses some of the misconceptions and urges the protection of basic linguistic rights.

• Literacy Development in Network-Based Classrooms: Innovation and Realizations

  by B. Bertram and J. K. Peyton. Electronic communication networks are in wide use for college-level language and writing instruction and are being adopted for use in elementary and secondary school classes. Teachers use network-based approaches to literacy instruction to support authentic reading and writing, collaboration, student centered learning, writing across the curriculum, and the creation of classroom writing communities. A case study of network-based college classrooms identified great diversity in the ways these goals were realized. Nevertheless, common factors shaped all of the implementations: institutional goals, practices, and gateposts; theories, personalities, and established practices of teachers; student characteristics and expectations; features of the technology; and available resources. These factors suggest that like any innovation, the introduction of computer technology to promote interaction and learning in educational settings is a complex process that cannot be divorced from the users or the setting. The authors suggest this complexity needs to be understood so that perceptions of and expectations regarding the value of the innovation are neither idealized nor superficial.

• A Longitudinal Model for Interpreting Thirty Years of Bilingual Education Research
  
  

  by Jesus Salazar. This article summarizes the results from the re-analysis of two recent bilingual education studies: Greene's (1998) meta-analysis and Thomas and Collier's (1997) longitudinal study. First , the article presents the ten main criteria identified over the past three decades by the research community for conducting a methodologically adequate bilingual education study. Second, based on a power analysis of Greene's data, it is argued that a major reason why many bilingual education studies over the past thirty years remain uninterpretable is because of the high occurrence of Type II errors. Third, based on an effect size analysis of Thomas and Collier's data, it is maintained that their longitudinal model best explains thirty years of bilingual education research. When Thomas and Collier's data are converted into effect sizes, their model becomes a longitudinal meta-analysis, and their findings support the results from Greene's and Willig's (1985) meta-analyses. This article concludes by making recommendations for enhancing the evaluation of Title VII programs.

  NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

M

• Maintaining Languages What Works? What Doesn't?
  
  

  by Joshua Fishman. This paper is adapted from the speech given by Dr. Fishman at the Second Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium on May 4, 1995.

• Mandarin Chinese for Elementary Students Project CLASS: Chinese Language Achievement through Sequential Study

  by Project CLASS. Comperhensive, sequential program to assist stuents to acquire the Mandarin Chinese langauge. Student Text, Student Workbook, and Teacher's Manual are provided in PDF format.

  NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Mentoring the Bilingual Teacher

  The purpose of this article by María E. Torres-Guzmán is to present a review of the literature on mentoring bilingual teachers and to pose alternatives to extant models. A question and answer format has been used to provide a definition of mentoring, discuss implementation efforts and problems encountered, identify salient issues emerging from the pairing of mentors in bilingual settings and suggest mentoring alternatives.

• A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Bilingual Education
  
  

  by Jay P. Greene. With the sponsorship of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, the Public Policy Clinic of the University of Texas' Government Department, and Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance, the researchers have conducted a systematic, statistical review of the literature on the effectiveness of bilingual education. With this technique known as meta-analysis to summarize the scholarly research, they find that children with limited English proficiency who are taught using at least some of their native language perform significantly better on standardized tests than similar children who are taught only in English. In other words, an unbiased reading of the scholarly research suggests that bilingual education helps children who are learning English.

• Mexican American Women: Schooling, Work, and Family

  by Flora Ida Ortiz. The Bureau of Census (1994) reports there are approximately 13 million U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. Over 30 percent reside in the South and over 45 percent in the West. The lives of Mexican American women, wherever they reside, are affected profoundly by schooling, work, and family. This report shows the interdependence of these factors; changes in one affect the others.

• Model Strategies in Bilingual Education: Professional Development
  
  

  by Mary S. Leighton, Amy M. Hightower and Pamela Wrigley. From the projects described in this federally sponsored report, educators can learn much about how to develop a highly qualified instructional workforce for language minority students. Illustrates research-supported principles of professional development with the experiences of communities of scholars, practitioners, and teacher aspirants at selected sites. Commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs.

• Moving In and Out of Bilingualism: Investigating Native Language Maintenance and Shift in Mexican-Descent Children

  by Lucinda Pease-Alvarez. Recent research has emphasized the economic, social, and cognitive advantages available to bilinguals. Yet for many immigrant groups, bilingualism is a temporary phenomenon. Most immigrant children arrive in the United States as monolingual speakers of their native language, develop bilingualism as they acquire English, establish English-speaking households, and raise their children as English-speaking monolinguals. According to survey data, even Spanish, a language thought to be particularly enduring in the United States, seldom lasts beyond the second or third generation

• A Multicultural Nationalism?

  by T. Alexander Aleinikoff. This essay suggersts that cross-national group loyalties can neither be wished away or erased. Yet the idea of the American nation is worth defending against multicultural attack. Herewith some ground rules for a culturally diverse nation.

• Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be Learned from Research on Instructed SLA

  by Carol A. Chapelle. This paper suggests that some design features and evaluation criteria for multimedia Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) might be developed on the basis of hypotheses about ideal conditions for second language acquisition (SLA). It outlines a relevant theory of SLA and enumerates the hypotheses it implies for ideal conditions such as input saliency, opportunities for interaction, and learner focus on communication. Implications of each hypothesis for multimedia CALL design and evaluation are outlined and exemplified.

• Mystery on the Bilingual Express: A Critique of the Thomas and Collier Study
  
  

  by Christine Rossell. A critique of the study suggesting that the methodology of the study is unscientific. The criteria for a scientific study are basically four-fold. First, there should be a treatment group-for example, LEP students in a bilingual program-and one or more comparison groups-forexample, similar LEP students in one or more types of all-English programs. Second, the achievement of these students should be compared after some time period in their respective programs. Third, any differences between the students initially should be controlled for statistically in order to give each group a level playing field. (This is not necessary if there is random assignment.) Fourth, the same students must be followed over time since there is no way to statistically control or match on initial differences, nor would it make any sense to do so if different students are in the study at different points in time. This article contends that although all four characteristics are essential, only the first two are found in the Thomas and Collier study.

• Myths and Misconceptions About Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn
  
  

  by Barry McLaughlin. By discussing commonly held myths and misconceptions, this paper attempts to clarify a number of important issues in the area of second language learning. These include the ease and rapidity with which children learn a second language, the optimal age at which to begin second language instruction, the importance of the extent of exposure to the second language, the relationship between oral communication skills and academic language skills, and cultural and individual differences in language learning styles. Each myth presented in this paper is followed by a discussion of related research on second language learning and its implications for classroom teachers.

N

• National Profiles Of Languages In Education: Israel Language Policy

  by Bernard Spolsky and Elana Shohamy. Article focusing on Israel's language policy reporting Israel as highly multilingual, with a 20% Arabic-speaking minority and large number of languages used by its enormous immigrant population, Hebrew is the dominant language for official, public and private use of the 5,500,000 citizens. In spite of the widespread official and ideological policy support for Hebrew, English has continued to flourish and spread in all sectors of the Israeli population. Article reviews language education policy and language education system.

• New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement

  by A.M. Shartrand, H.B. Weiss, H.M. Kreider, and M. Elena Lopez. Researchers at the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) have collected data to determine not only why training teachers to work successfully with families is so critical, but also how to train teachers to work in partnership with parents and families. In addition to identifying the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for teachers to prepare for family involvement, the findings confirm three needs of teachers: (1) more direct experiences with families and communities, (2) support in making school conditions conducive to family involvement, and (3) opportunities to share successful experiences and outcomes with their colleagues.

• No More Excuses: The Final Report of the Hispanic Dropout Project

  The final report of the Hispanic Dropout Project summarizes the project's findings, data, and recommendations, based on its work nationwide. It addresses the role of the following constituencies: students, parents and families, schools and school staff, local and state policymakers, and institutions of higher education, including the research and development establishment. For each constituency, the group presents typical comments advanced to explain inaction, followed by evidence of inaction, distilled from the data of the Hispanic Dropout Project and concrete illustrations from sites the project visited.

  NOTE: To read this article you will need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

O

• Official English and English Plus: An Update

  by V. W. Lewelling. The issue of an official language has surfaced periodically throughout U.S. history. On the surface, the idea appears to be a symbolic gesture-to give English, the de facto language of the country, official status. However, proposals have also called for prohibition of state laws, ordinances, orders, programs, and policies that require the use of other languages. Concern over the implications such an amendment could have for U.S. citizens and residents whose native language is other than English led to formation of an English Plus language advocacy coalition of more than 50