This article discusses the complex and subtle reasons why many people of Spanish-speaking ancestry, both Latin Americans and Spaniards, like to call themselves Latinos. Among other things, this word, coined by the Mediterranean countries to resist Anglo dominance in the 19th century, is currently being used by people of Spanish-speaking ancestry…

The goal of this study was to test the internal reliability of a Spanish translation of the CDI, (i.e., CDI-LA), a potentially useful screening instrument for Hispanic youngsters in their native language at a primary-care level. Self-reported symptoms of depression were assessed with the CDI-LA in a school sample of 205 Hispanic students. Girls…

Infant bilingualism offers a unique opportunity to study the relative effects of language experience and maturation on brain development, with each child serving as his or her own control. Event-related potentials (ERPs) to words were examined in 19- to 22-month-old English-Spanish bilingual toddlers. The children's dominant vs. nondominant…

This article examines the constraints on Prosodic Word production in Spanish by three monolingual and three Spanish-German bilingual children from the beginning of word production until 2;2. It also considers the relationship between Prosodic Words and Phonological Phrases, and in the case of monosyllabic words, it takes into consideration…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the discriminant accuracy of a grammatical measure for the identification of language impairment in Latino Spanish-speaking children. The authors hypothesized that if exposure to and use of English as a second language have an effect on the first language, bilingual children might exhibit lower…

Factors inhibiting Hispanic parental involvement in non-metropolitan area schools were studied. With the mandates of No Child Left Behind intensifying the need to improve the academic achievement of all at-risk groups of students in American schools, and with the relatively new phenomenon of large numbers of Hispanics settling in non-metropolitan…

Michael Woolf's article, "Come and See the Poor People: The Pursuit of Exotica," is a provocative critique of what he calls the "new orthodoxy" of promoting study abroad in non-traditional destinations. Woolf's underlying point is that the current emphasis on promoting student mobility to non-traditional, i.e. non-European, destinations "is…

Advanced inhibitory control skills have been found in bilingual speakers as compared to monolingual controls ( Bialystok, 1999 ). We examined whether this effect is generalized to an unstudied language group (Spanish-English bilingual) and multiple measures of executive function by administering a battery of tasks to 50 kindergarten children drawn…

This study compares quantitative and qualitative results for task-based second language (L2) grammar instruction conducted as whole-class, teacher-led discourse (TLD) versus small-group, learner-led discourse (LLD). Participants included 78 English-speaking adults from six university classes of beginning L2 Spanish, with two assigned to each…

Simply taking foreign language courses and being exposed to the language does not guarantee successful and positive learning experiences. When examining factors that influence foreign language learning, motivation should be considered. To extend current foreign language literature, this study integrated self-efficacy and Gardners' AMTB variables…

This study examined the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in English among Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) followed from fourth through fifth grade. Students' ability to decompose derived words while reading was assessed using an experimental task. Multiple regression analyses were used to…

This study investigates the impact of an online workbook on the attitudes of 245 second language (L2) Spanish learners toward this pedagogical tool over two consecutive semesters. The treatment consisted of four hours of classroom instruction and one set of online homework per week, during two consecutive semesters. Students' attitudes toward the…

Students' computer access and literacy in the context of CALL has seen very little empirical investigation. This study surveyed 911 students in basic college foreign language programs to estimate their readiness for hybrid language instruction. The questions on the survey covered issues concerning students' ownership and accessibility of…

Thirteen Ecuadorian indigenous nationalities follow the Intercultural Bilingual Education Model in Ecuador (MOSEIB). This paper analyses the present situation of MOSEIB, the challenges to it and future prospects. First, in order to understand how MOSEIB today has relieved the intercultural tensions of the past it is necessary to look at the…

This paper describes the development and validation of the Cognate Awareness Test (CAT), which measures cognate awareness in Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) in fourth and fifth grade. An investigation of differential performance on the two subtests of the CAT (cognates and noncognates) provides evidence that the instrument is…