The most basic and simplest act of communicative competence in Spanish involves the appropriate decoding and selection of the pronominal address forms "tu" and "Usted." Their selection and semantic value are not, however, determined by linguistic criteria alone. Since "tu/Ud." mark the relative status of each speaker in a given context, their…

Because of the recent Lau vs. Nichols decision by the Supreme Court, school districts will be looking for various instruments to determine language functionality in bilingual students. Nine tests are reviewed: the Leiter International Performance Scale (LIPS), the Michigan Oral Language Productive Tests Structured Response, the Michigan Oral…

The purpose of this learning activity packet is to acquaint students of Spanish as a second language with letter-writing in Spanish. Upon completion of the packet, students should be able to: (1) identify some of the major differences in mailing customs between the U.S. and Hispanic countries, (2) read and write mailing and return adresses, (3)…

The contents of this 1974-1975 Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I Evaluation Report are organized into five sections. Section one is based on data obtained from four-year-old children who participated in the Hilltop Home Intervention Program during the 1974-1975 school year. Secondary school students serviced by the Taylor Children's Home,…

Spanish students in four inner-city high schools were first tested for conceptual tempo and then given the Test of Oral Proficiency in Spanish (TOPS). It is concluded that speeded and timed tests not only allow impulsive examinees to answer too soon, but often pressure normally reflective examinees to respond impulsively. (EJS)

Describes five two-way bilingual education programs in Massachusetts: three in Boston, one in Holyoke, and one in Lawrence. Names and addresses of contact persons at each school are included. (PS)

Fifty-one adult Spanish speakers at three levels of ESL ability were tested in both their elicited imitation (production) and act-out (comprehension) of complex sentences that were structurally identical. Analysis of variance results indicate that production tests, not comprehension tests, principally evaluate a learner's structural knowledge.…

The low birth weight criterion and other factors used for entry in 1971 into the Responsive Environment Program for Spanish-American Children (RESPAC), yielded predictions of school failure for nearly all RESPAC students. A significant finding of the 10-year follow-up study was that 86 percent of RESPAC students had normal school progress. (JHZ)

The collection of seven working papers in linguistics includes: "Proceeding from Syllable Inventory to Phonemic Inventory in the Analysis of Liangshan Yi (Andy Eatough); "Empty Consonants in Root-Medial Position" (Stephen A. Marlett); "What Is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes" (Jim Meyer); "Seri…

This brochure, written in Spanish, discusses strategies that Spanish-speaking parents can use to support the interests of their children and how to recognize and extend their children's talents. Parents are urged to: (1) be aware of what their child likes to do and be patient with the changing patterns as the child explores areas of interests and…

This collection of papers presents research on language processing among second language learners and bilinguals. The nine papers include the following: (1) "The Bilingual's Language Modes" (Francois Grosjean); (2) "The Voicing Contrast in English and Spanish: The Relationship between Perception and Production" (Mary L. Zampini…

This study examined how existing literacy practices in native language and English affect the ways parents manage their own lives and support emergent literacy in their children. Participating in the study were non-English speaking parents of successive cohorts of children attending a preschool in Arlington, Virginia. Data collection methods…

This guide for parents, in Spanish, explains the changes in the federal special education law resulting from the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Changes related to the parent's role in decisions about the child's education and in how schools can discipline special education students are highlighted. A…

This paper presents the results of a research study carried out with Mexican college students to analyze the relationship between readers' cognitive styles (field dependent/independent) and their performance at different levels of written discourse processing in Spanish (L1) and English (L2). The sample for the study included 452 undergraduate…

This document was created as a resource for educators and policymakers regarding English Language Learners (ELLs) in U.S. public schools, providing a synthesis of the research on teaching and learning to read in English as it relates to students in U.S. public schools who speak little or no English. Focusing attention on children of primary…