This report contains a synopsis of the binational conference and features brief summaries of all the papers presented at the conference. Over 350 educators, community leaders, and researchers were brought together to discuss the educational extremes found along the border between the United States and Mexico and to investigate instructional…

Dual language programs are bilingual education immersion models designed to address the needs of limited-English-proficient students and native English speakers by proving an additive language approach. In this program, English and Spanish are used for the purpose of developing bilingual and biliteracy skills. The project was structured after the…

This paper examines the special challenges that English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students face in succeeding in science classrooms in U.S. schools. Particular focus is on how students in one experimental classroom (a Grade 2 and Grade 3 two-way bilingual English-Spanish class in a small western city) learned to apprehend scientific meaning with…

Presents evidence contradicting previous findings regarding the relative academic superiority of recent Mexican immigrants over native-born Mexican Americans. Discusses the problem of the relative achievement levels of the two groups in the context of three possible explanations: socio-economic differences; teacher expectancy effect; and native…

Reports results of a study conducted with learners of Chinese who were involved in a late immersion program in a graduate school of education in Australia. The aim of the project was to explore the depths of learners' experiences of learning Chinese in an immersion setting. (Author/JL)

Mathematics educators are concerned about students' lack of ability to translate mathematical word problems into computable forms. Researchers argue that linguistic problems lie at the root of students' difficulties with mathematical word problems. The issue becomes more complicated for bilingual students. It is argued that if students study…

Over the last 30 years, inquiry-based teaching has become a highly valued component of professional development and practitioner research in Australia and New Zealand. This volume of the Language Teacher Research Series focuses on teaching and learning experiences in those two countries, which encompass a large geographical area with diverse…

A study investigated the emerging journal-writing skills of 16 monolingual Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans and 10 monolingual English-speaking first-graders in San Diego County, California, in a whole-language, two-way bilingual classroom. The research looked for developmental stages in writing in the primary language, similarities or…

The results of surveys of early- and late-entry French immersion program graduates in Ottawa and Carleton, Ontario are reported and discussed. The majority of respondents were graduates who had transfered from early-entry immersion programs to bilingual programs in grades 7, 8, or 9, graduates of the full late-entry immersion program, and…

This publication provides information on programs of study in Canada under the following headings: (1) the language of the minority group (French in nine of the provinces, English in Quebec) as a subject of study, showing grade enrollments and participation rates; (2) the language of the minority qroup as a first language (designed for French…

Observation and analysis of classroom interaction is used in a pilot study of Grade 8 and 9 French immersion programs to evaluate the relative importance placed by teachers on different student oral behaviors. The frequencies of teachers' corrections for different kinds of students' errors (in second language [L2] skills, subject matter knowledge,…

The National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) newsletter is published 8 times a year in order to help NABE fulfill its mission of addressing the educational needs of language-minority Americans. Topics such as educational reform, bilingual education, bilingualism, indigenous bilingual education, second language teaching (theory and…

This guide, written in a question-and-answer format, provides basic information on bilingualism and raises practical issues in plain, clear, and direct language. It is written for both monolingual speakers who want to consider bilingualism and bilingual speakers who want to become better informed. Many of the ideas and perceptions in the first…

Concerns and trends in immersion instruction are identified and recommendations for the future are presented. Issues include language teacher education and qualifications; administrator role; accountability; junior, kindergarten, and special education; methods for encouraging nativelike language; and the definition of immersion. (Author/MSE)

This study investigated the degree of communicative competence of 8-year-old (n=45) students in five Welsh language immersion programs or Welsh-medium schools, comparing the children's skills with those of 10 native Welsh-speaking children. All were asked to retell a story show previously on video, and to participate in a group discussion task. In…