Inter-American Magnet School in Chicago, a highly acclaimed Spanish-English dual-language elementary school, established pull-out English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes to provide extra English instruction, primarily for new immigrants. Describes the school's founding and development, students, innovative bilingual staff, multicultural…

The influence of bilingualism on third language learning in a bilingual community is examined. Measures of the English-language achievement of students instructed through the majority (Spanish) and minority (Basque) languages, suggest that bilingualism and other variables (intelligence, motivation, age, exposure) were good predictors of…

Compares the acquisition of English as a third language by Catalan/Spanish bilingual high school students in an immersion program with the acquisition of English by Spanish monolinguals. Data from 201 participants were submitted to a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, rendering results that show that bilingualism has a positive effect on…

A Chicana bilingual teacher from Arizona lived with a middle-class Mexican family during a 5-week Mexican immersion program. Her complaints about "harsh reactions" toward her and her Spanish showed how her use of a few stigmatized characteristics of nonstandard Spanish were judged by standard Spanish speakers to indicate an uneducated…

This article reports a study of parental motivation, attitudes, support, and commitment for the second year of the two-way immersion (TWI) program at an elementary school in San Bernardino, California. Findings include the unique aspects of border communities; similarities and differences between Spanish-language and English-language participants;…

A discussion of bilingual education in the Basque Country of Spain presents and compares three language education program/policy models: (1) the traditional approach to language instruction as a subject area, found to be minimally effective in developing second language skills; (2) partial immersion, originally with instruction almost exclusively…

A study compared the foreign language proficiency levels and language and cultural attitudes of students involved in two kinds of elementary school Spanish language programs: immersion and Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES). The study also investigated the variation in achievement among children in the same program. Fifth and sixth…

This paper addresses an important topic--the isolation and or lack of inclusion of immigrant children in U.S. schools. Immigrant children constantly pour into U.S. schools and, especially as newcomers, their opportunities for authentic interaction with mainstream peers are limited. How can schools provide authentic language opportunities for…

Reviews the different approaches to multicultural science teaching that have emerged in the past decade, focusing on the Spanish-English two-way immersion classroom, which meets the needs of Spanish speakers learning English and introduces students to the idea of collaboration across languages and cultures. Two urban two-way immersion classrooms…

This article reports on a diary study conducted to explore third language acquisition in the immersion setting in Mexico as experienced by a bilingual Russian/English learner of Spanish who had recently immigrated to the USA from Russia. Language learning is approached as a socialization process that involves negotiation of meaning (Vygotsky,…

The Bellevue (Washington) public schools' Spanish immersion program is described and program-related information is provided for parents. The description outlines general program goals and the basic educational assumptions underlying them, briefly chronicles the history of immersion education and of the Bellevue program, enumerates curriculum…

The partial immersion program at Key Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, was prompted by work being done in Virginia and Connecticut public schools by the Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR) at the Center for Applied Linguistics. Established within the gifted and talented strand at the school, for most of the year the class…

This study sought to examine to what extent language learners in an immersion classroom used their native language and the foreign language when performing the cognitive operations involved in math word problems. Thirty-two third- through sixth-graders in a Spanish immersion program participated in the study. Data were collected through: (1)…

The fourth phase of a longitudinal study focusing on the cognitive and language development of children in a primary-grade Spanish immersion program (SIP) is reported. Subjects were the remaining 13 members of an SIP cohort beginning in 1987, 15 members of a standard program comparison classroom, 18 members of another class in the 1987 SIP cohort,…

First year planning and implementation of the Portland (Oregon) Partial Immersion Program in Spanish--an elementary magnet program providing a total language experience in a multi-cultural setting--were assessed. The program uses both Spanish and English to instruct students; half of the instructional day is conducted in each language. The…