Community-based heritage language (HL) programs can empower culturally and linguistically diverse students and families to construct hybrid practices linking home and school knowledges to promote learning. This study focused on the analysis of critical incidents in one Spanish HL program involving both youths and adults. Findings revealed the ways…

Research examining ethnolinguistic community schools (García, Zakharia, & Otcu, 2013) proposes that local spaces not directly affiliated with schools sustain bilingualism and identity. Though researchers often theorize about how community schools sustain home language literacies, less research examines how local public spaces sustain…

"Proceedings of International Conference on Social and Education Sciences" includes full papers presented at the International Conference on Social and Education Sciences (IConSES), which took place on October 7-10, 2019, in Denver, Colorado. The aim of the conference is to offer opportunities to share ideas, discuss theoretical and…

An extensive body of research documents the successes of immigrant groups in establishing community language schools. Studied within this tradition, Latino immigrant communities appear to come up short, because of the scarcity of such schools for Spanish-speaking children. However, as we show in this paper, Latino immigrant communities do have…

We report on the service-learning component of a Spanish-language Saturday school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for elementary-aged Spanish-language heritage learners and also examine the newly forming Latino community served by this innovative program. The US Spanish-speaking population is growing throughout the country, resulting in greatly increased…

This article reports the results of an investigation into current Spanish heritage language (SHL) course offerings and their content in 4-year public and private universities in the American Southwest. Prior research has indicated that the number of language departments in the United States offering SHL courses remains small (18 and 17.8%,…

CThe article is a study of Latino immigrant parents' agency toward primary language (L1) instruction in the face of restrictionist language policy. Certain attitudes and characteristics were associated with advocacy for Spanish L1 instruction. Interviews conducted in an urban California school district among parents with different background…

Examines how Spanish is taught to Hispanic bilinguals. Discussion focuses on how the oral proficiency movement directly affects the teaching of native Spanish speakers. Key issues and problems stemming from the language teaching profession's attempts to apply the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service…

The Hispanic population of the United States is quite diverse and with each passing year, due to (im)migration patterns, more and more students are entering language classrooms with some degree of familiarity with the language. However, because of the tendency toward intergenerational loss of Spanish, the linguistic proficiency covers the…

Taking a position that is unusual these days, New Jersey officials are promoting research that says bilingual education methods have an edge over English-only methods in teaching English-language learners to read. This article talks about the importance of bilingual education or a blended approach in the implementation of Reading First Program in…

Derisive attitudes towards Spanish in the United States threaten its survival. Four issues vital to the preservation of Spanish in the United States are examined: the arbitrary nature of linguistic prejudice, the linguistic validity of all dialects, the overwhelming linguistic overlap between nonstandard and standard dialects of Spanish, and the…

The theoretical and pedagogical issues emanating from the practice of teaching Spanish to Hispanic bilingual college students are discussed. Distinctions are made between standard Spanish and the two most important United States varieties of Chicano and Puerto Rican Spanish, and structural differences are examined. Teaching suggestions are…

Describes the development and structure of Mujeres Unidas en Accion, Inc., a nonprofit community-based agency in Dorchester, Massachusetts, that offers educational programs to low-income Latina women, and looks closely at one of its educational components, the Spanish program. (Author/JOW)

This Digest focuses on the teaching of Spanish to U.S. Hispanic bilinguals at the university level. Traditionally, Spanish has been taught as a second or foreign language in the United States, and little attention has been given to developing and coordinating well designed and carefully articulated programs for Hispanic bilingual students of…

Project BECA, in its first year of funding, provided instruction in English as a second language and native language development, and bilingual instruction in mathematics, science, history, economics, industrial arts, recording keeping, typing, and bookkeeping to approximately 290 Spanish-speaking students in grades 9 through 12 at a high school…