A study, presented here in two volumes and entirely in French, investigated the usefulness of introducing different varieties of Spanish in the classroom to improve listening comprehension skills, and the capacity of students to understand language variations. The experiment was conducted during two quarters at the University of Laval (Quebec),…

A study was conducted in a middle to upper class neighborhood in a Minnesota city to determine the practices that the Spanish teacher used to encourage full student participation and to consider whether the Freirian view of education can furnish an adequate framework for understanding this teacher's practices. Of the school's more than 500…

This book discusses the demographic, cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, and educational characteristics of Hispanic children and youth. Chapters cover: (1) historical and demographic overview (history of Hispanic presence in the United States, geographic distribution, population size and growth, migration, social and cultural patterns, parent…

This paper presents some of the overall findings of the Cooperative Reading Project (CRP), a collaboration between six teachers in a bilingual Spanish/English elementary school and a team of university researchers to examine and improve upon cooperative learning literacy instruction. The CRP took a social constructivist learning stance toward…

This guide describes "Pequenitos en Accion" (Small Children in Action), the Edgewood (Texas) Independent School District (ISD) early childhood intervention program for Spanish-speaking 3-year-old preschool children. The program is an innovative early childhood education model involving educational programming, collaboration and…

Papers in this volume include the following: "Addressing Contextual Issues Relevant to Language Teaching in South Africa": Implications for Policy and Practice" (J. Keith Chick); "A Comparative Study of Compliment Responses: Korean Females in Korean Interactions and in English Interactions" (Chung-hye Han); "Can You…

A practicum was undertaken to improve second language acquisition and critical thinking skills in a fourth and fifth grade English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class in a Spanish-speaking low socioeconomic neighborhood. Students there were not exposed to English except during school hours, and they were taking 4 or 5 years to become…

Presentations of panelists at one in a series of monthly seminars on Family Centered Social Policy are summarized. The first panelist, Maria E. Enchautegui, began with a statistical overview of Latino poverty and then highlighted data for subgroups. Mirien Uriarte presented findings from her study on the experiences of Latinas in the Massachusetts…

As part of the special education curriculum developed by the Puerto Rico Department of Public Instruction, this teacher's guide (in Spanish) presents a basic curriculum for reading skills. The curriculum is designed so that the defined skills will meet the needs of children with disabilities. The form in which teachers and other professionals will…

These materials consist of a series of lessons comprising an interdisciplinary, multicultural instructional unit. They were designed for use in an elementary school Spanish partial immersion program, to address a variety of needs and learning styles of children from diverse backgrounds, and are intended to foster a sense of community and…

This article presents an overview of an ongoing initiative to develop, integrate, and evaluate multimedia lessons to enhance listening comprehension in Spanish language classes at the Catholic University of America (District of Columbia). Focusing on the process involved, the two phases of the project that have been completed are examined,…

This paper reports the findings of a study that assessed the effect of two classwide instructional grouping adaptation strategies on the math performance of English-language Latino learners in an urban public school in the Southwestern United States. An ABAB within-case design was implemented over a 12-week period to contrast the effectiveness of…

A study analyzed the use of Basque and Spanish by 36 bilingual teenagers enrolled in a Basque school in Spain, based on results of a survey. The history and present situation of the Basque language are outlined, and the importance of the revival of the Basque language by those who learn it in school is highlighted. Complete technical data from the…

A bilingual survey was developed to register the feelings of parents toward involvement in their children's preschool and kindergarten and to determine the unique needs of parents during interactions with the schools. The survey was tested with 50 parents, and the results were tabulated to determine differences between the feelings of Hispanic and…

The assumptions that high-stakes testing is useful in raising educational standards for all students and that higher standards lead to higher educational performance for all students have not been tested in schools along the Texas border with Mexico. This study analyzed the effects of the high-stakes testing policy on students in a small rural…