This report covers the activities of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) from October 1, 2002, to September 30, 2003. In addition to describing OCR's civil rights compliance program, the report demonstrates how OCR is able to make a real difference in the lives of students. 2004 marks a special year in America's…

Papers on foreign language education include: "The Message Is the Medium: Using Video Materials To Facilitate Foreign Language Performance" (Thomas J. Garza), which explores the use of this medium to enhance commonly-used non-communicative or text-bound teaching materials; "Product and Process Aspects of NES/EFL Students' Persuasive…

The papers included in this yearbook of the Finnish Society of Applied Linguistics (AFinLA) were presented at the 1998 AFinLA conference "Linguistics and Finland: Crossing the Gulf." Papers are in Finnish, Estonian, or English, but all have accompanying English abstracts. The topics discussed in the papers include the following: speed…

This report was written at the request of the Latino caucus of the California State Legislature and was completed as the debate surrounding Proposition 227--a measure requiring a substantial cutback in special services to limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in California public schools--was getting underway. The impetus for the report was to…

One result of the all-time high in population mobility is that in many school systems monolingual and monocultural students are the exception rather than the rule, particularly in urban areas. This shift in demographic realities entails enormous challenges for educators and policymakers. What do teachers need to know in order to teach effectively…

We study the benefits of junior kindergarten for linguistic-minority 4-year-olds compared to their linguistic-majority classmates from the same low-income neighborhoods. At the end of the school year, linguistic-minority children made significantly greater improvements in language skills than their host society classmates. At the mid-year point,…

New York's state standards for student achievement in second language learning, for languages other than English, are outlined in the areas of both communication skills and cultural awareness, at three proficiency levels. The first standard is that "students will be able to use a language other than English for communication." The second…

This handbook on elementary-secondary foreign language education goals and objectives serves as a framework on which a comprehensive curriculum for Michigan schools can be built. It includes a discussion of the most significant components of current foreign language methodology and is designed to assist local school districts in goal setting and…

This paper presents findings from a state-sponsored study of the adult education needs of limited-English-proficient (LEP) adults in California. The findings relate primarily to the situation of the over 2.3-million Spanish-speaking LEP adults, and within this population, to Mexican immigrants. Data were gathered in household surveys in three…

This collection of papers on bilingual education, presented at the previous two NABE annual conferences, focuses on special programs, gifted and talented education, special education, and innovative teaching approaches. Articles include: "Writing Instruction for Limited English Proficient Students: A Survey of Teachers' Perceptions" (Laurie R.…

A collection of essays on first and second language proficiency from the fields of psychology and linguistics includes the following: "Modeling and Assessing Language Proficiency" (John H. A. L. de Jong, Ludo Verhoeven); "The Construct of Grammar in Early Language Development" (Folkert Kuiken); "Dimensions in Grammatical Proficiency" (Wim H. J.…

A collection of nine papers from the fourth part of the conference on the applications of foreign language and international studies to business addresses the issue of program and instructional design. The papers include: "Program Design, Lesson Planning and Strategies for Foreign Language Business Courses: An Overview" (Ronald Cere),…

Workshops on proficiency testing attended by foreign language faculty at the University of South Carolina provided the starting point for extradepartmental involvement in proficiency testing. As a result of funding requirements and a cooperative arrangement between the foreign languages department and the Masters in International Business program…

Selected papers from a conference on language proficiency, policy, and language teacher professionalism include: "Proficiency in Perspective in the Foreign Language Classroom" (Sally Sieloff Magnan); "Teaching Foreign Languages: Policy and the Federal Role" (Paul Simon); "Proficiency in the 'Real World' of the Professional…

The Workplace Skills Enhancement Project was provided by the Seattle-King County Private Industry Council in Partnership with the Employment Opportunities Center and the Refugee Federation Service Center. Of the 150 participants in the program, 137 were Asian. Workplace literacy training was generally advertised as a voluntary program available to…