Language education policy has been a controversial and ongoing issue throughout the U.S., particularly in the state of Texas. This paper reports on a frame analysis of the five bills that amended the Texas Education Code to implement or expand bilingual education and English as a second language programs. Analysis focused on problems and solutions…

Although in recent years federal, state and local initiatives have been directed toward improving the education of Hispanic children, no significant impacts have as yet been made. The major weakness may be that strategies are still being designed against the characteristics of the larger society and not against the particular minority group.…

Responding to the needs for professional bilingual linguists to work in private industry and government, the National Hispanic University (NHU) has developed a B.A. degree program in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Spanish and English translation. The program combines theoretical and applied course work in translation in the fields of…

Despite a growing trend and early successes, program development for business language courses is still in its early stages. Curriculum developers have much work to do, many decisions to make, and a variety of problems to solve, most important of which are content, approaches, learning systems, and instructional strategies. First, the program type…

Foreign language departments at U.S. colleges have traditionally tended to limit their language for business offerings to one course per language. Attempts to expand the business foreign language curriculum may meet with resistance from traditional foreign language departments over the issue of academic priorities. Careful prior planning, specific…

The development of a marketing strategy for business Spanish courses by means of situational analysis is described. The planner of marketing strategy must consider demand for a course, institutional acceptance, and financial support. A survey of 508 universities revealed a low level of demand for business Spanish which could potentially be…

The University of Southwestern Louisiana initiated a commercial Spanish curriculum to serve the growing number of students in the business school. Two major factors were considered: (1) most business students had only taken language classes as electives and were concerned about the career relevance of those courses, and (2) language courses had to…

The program, curriculum, and materials needed to provide business Spanish training are described, and the available instructional materials are reviewed and listed. In developing a business Spanish program, decisions must be made regarding goals, content, structure, instructional format, evaluation procedures, and target population. The content of…

Discusses the author's experience as director of the Program in English as a Second Language (ESL) at Lehman College of the City University in the Bronx, New York. ESL, bilingual, and mainstream (ie., curricula that assume English proficiency) programs should be better coordinated to meet their common goal. (BJV)

The development of a language development program for limited-English-proficient Spanish-speaking students in a New Mexico junior high school are described. Initially, the program was organized in response to sudden heavy enrollment of non-English-speaking students, and was intended to teach them English. In subsequent years, through application…

This paper summarizes the five year period (1980-1985) of the Sacramento City Unified School District Parent Participation Preschool and Children's Centers. The program provided multilingual education to preschool children and their limited-English-speaking parents. Children were enrolled in existing Head Start and State Preschool programs, and…

This paper describes the development and implementation of an after school program designed to introduce the Spanish language to children between the ages of 5 and 9. The program consists of 8 to 10 weekly units, each lasting 50 minutes, that provide students with basic vocabulary and grammar in an interesting and motivating format. Each unit…

To provide a more permanent foundation for foreign language education in general and for extracurricular FLES programs in particular, a project was funded by the Iowa Humanities Board and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its overall goals were to ensure positive foreign language learning experiences for elementary and secondary school…

Teachers must consider eight things when they work in a bilingual reading program: each student's level of language development; the teaching method (whether synthetic, analytic, or a combination of the two) appropriate to the students' learning abilities; reading materials, including the degree of Spanish competency required of the teacher, the…

Inclusion of bilingual education in higher education, both as an area of study and as a medium of instruction, will facilitate an increased level of academic achievement for Hispanic students. Hispanics as a group do not exhibit like characteristics in language proficiency in either English or Spanish, or like characteristics in cultural or…