Considers the impact that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could have on the publishing world and the availability of Spanish language materials. Mexican and Latin American publishing, as well as economic, social, and historical factors, are examined; and the market for Spanish language materials in the United States is discussed.…

Instructors are prepared to use Spanish versions of English-speaking and bilingual artists' recordings to teach language structures and enhance the five skill areas. This article reviews the literature and pedagogical use of songs and also provides a list of recordings, recommendations for classroom use, and two sample lesson plans. (Contains 20…

The special needs of college students with learning disabilities are often challenging because of the variety of disabilities and accommodations. An alternative, parallel Spanish course at Old Dominion is described in the larger context of postsecondary foreign-language requirements. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/LB)

Although many new books depict Latino people and culture in a positive realistic or artistic perspective, others continue to present stereotypes or are marked by poor translations that do not represent the richness of the Spanish language. Annotations review 10 recommended and 13 not recommended books for young readers. (SLD)

Demonstrates the dimensions of the processes of simplification, transfer, and convergence in the contact situation of Chicano Spanish and English. It is argued that changes in a language may be accelerated by a contact situation, reviewing data on bilingual Spanish-speakers in the United States and monolingual Spanish-speakers in Mexico. (11…

Three studies investigated Spanish and English readers' interpretations of sentences with complex noun phrases (NPs). In contrast to earlier findings, results provided evidence for cross-language universality of the late closure parsing principle. Results suggest that late closure is not language-specific but specific to only certain classes of…

Middle-school students can be given the appealing writing assignment early in a Spanish course: writing to someone their own age about topics they can handle linguistically. (Author)

Examines switches produced in spontaneous speech over a period of 15 months by 2 trilingual children acquiring Hebrew, Spanish, and English. The switches were analyzed both grammatically and according to specific sociolinguistic features. (seven references) (VWL)

Follow up to a previous study of the use of "por" and "para," this study analyzes "ser,""estar," and "haber" for lexical selection in relation to their functions and also for errors in tense, mode, aspect, agreement, and invented forms and uses of copula in simplified or reduced utterances. Data were from 20 oral examinations of Peace Corps…

Active comprehension, a strategy used in the United States to teach Spanish language basal reading, is discussed. The strategy emphasizes a process approach to comprehension instruction. (20 references) (JL)

Describes the experience of 11 Michigan bilingual teachers attending an immersion program in Mexico involving 15 days of intensive seminars dealing with Mexican history, geography, mythology, folklore, politics, and education. (CB)

Reports on the results of a descriptive study of the noun phrase agreement behavior exhibited by three first-year Spanish language students during a series of oral interviews conducted over six months (two academic quarters).(13 references) (JL)

Student attitudes toward the study of literature in a foreign language were examined, based on a survey of introduction to literature courses in French and Spanish. Most students revealed positive attitudes. A review of previous research and the survey instrument are included. (38 references) (LB)

Forty-six Spanish-speaking children ages four, six, or eight years viewed a short silent film and told what happened in the film. The stories of older children included more narrative actions, more mental state/goal causes, more three-clause causal sequences, and a lower proportion of unrelated statements than those of younger children.…

Hispanic first graders who spoke only Spanish at home (OSH) and those who spoke English and Spanish at home (ESH) performed near the mean on a Spanish adaptation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R). The ESH children scored higher than OSH children on the PPVT-R. (BC)