This paper examines the political meanings of language in the USA, from the perspectives of both majority- and minority-language groups, and focuses especially on Mainstream US English, African-American Vernacular English, and Spanish. It briefly traces the history of language policy in US education and argues that because language serves as a…

The present study utilizes traditional silent reading and a think-aloud procedure to investigate the role of lexical cues to meaning in the incidental acquisition of the Spanish future tense. A total of 161 beginning-level university students of Spanish participated in the study. Two versions of a reading passage that contained 13 target items…

The role of explicit and implicit acquisition of grammatical rules in second language learning was examined by assessing high school students performance after several years of study on the correct use of the Spanish verbs "ser" and "estar". These two verbs are essentially equivalent in use to the English verb "to be," but there is a complex set…

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated speech rhythm acquisition by bilingual Spanish-English-speaking children, comparing their performance with functionally monolingual peers in both languages and to monolingual and bilingual adults. Method: Participants included younger children (3;9 [years;months] to 4;5.15 [years;months.days]),…

This brief provides highlights from "Advancing Achievement: Findings from an Independent Evaluation of a Major After-School Initiative." The brief underscores the potential of after-school programs in the ongoing drive to advance children's academic achievement. It shines a light on some of the issues that matter most for programs striving to…

Many informal science educational programs aim to help students improve their understanding of science. Little research, however, has focused specifically on the direct experiences and subsequent ideas of culturally and linguistically diverse girls when they engage with science in informal learning settings. The research described in this report…

In 2002, Massachusetts voters passed Question 2, a law similar to its predecessors in California (Proposition 227) and Arizona (Proposition 203) to replace bilingual education with structured English immersion (SEI) programs. Using Ruiz's (1984) framework for language planning as an analytical lens, this study examined how three Massachusetts…

What challenges do political science educators face teaching in the Hispanic-serving classroom? How do they adapt their teaching styles and strategies when confronting these challenges? This preliminary study explores these and related questions through a survey conducted of political science instructors at colleges and universities across Texas.…

The promise of dual language education has spurred a movement in the field of bilingual education to shift from remedial programs to enrichment forms of bilingual education. Although research supports the effectiveness of such programs, many programs do not maintain their level of implementation and quickly revert to their original remedial form.…

This study reports on preliminary findings of two research projects conducted during the 1988-89 and 1990-91 in Cordoba, Argentina, that examined fixed, idiomatic, Spanish-language expressions that are very common, but often ignored, in oral Spanish discourse. Study 1 subjects were 13 university-educated, adults, born in the city; study 2 subjects…

The 26 units of Spanish instruction for grades K-8 presented here were developed by participants in a 1995-96 teacher institute. The units are designed to help children and adolescents learn both language and culture through Mexican legends. Activities help introduce the legend, test comprehension, and extend the meaning, to develop deeper…

This paper states that the language called "Ebonics" is believed to be over 300 years old and that a great deal of the language was created while Black slaves were being brought from Africa to the Americas. Noting that in January of this year the Linguistic Society of America recognized Ebonics as an official language with just as much…

At the request of beginning English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students and their teachers, pronunciation problems of Spanish and Vietnamese speaking learners were identified and prioritized by ESL teaching staff. Under the direction of the project director, resources to help teachers aid their students in addressing these problems were identified…

This bibliography presents a retrospective index of 6,050 doctoral dissertations, accepted by Western European universities, on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian languages and literatures, part of a larger, world study of that field. The bibliography's scope is limited to doctoral dissertations on the Romance languages and dialects of Portugal, Spain,…

A study analyzed the emergence of the definite article in language history from classical Latin to vulgar Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian. It traces the grammaticalization of demonstratives into both nominative and accusative definite articles, both pre- and post-nominal. It is shown that based on documents from the fourth to sixth…