The New York State core curriculum for English as a second language (ESL) in the secondary schools, which is a recommended minimum inventory of areas to be covered, is presented. The curriculum is divided into four instructional levels: beginning, intermediate, advanced, and transitional. At each level, language skills are further subdivided into…

The passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 established foreign languages as a core curricular area. Nonetheless, educational policymakers at the state and local levels often opt to allocate greater resources and give instructional priority to content areas in which students, and ultimately the school systems themselves, are held…

The author reviews research on the connections between attitudes and language learning, and between attitudes and motivation. The article suggests that language learners' motivation and attitudes can influence learning outcomes, and that effective teaching can change negative attitudes. It describes a classroom action research project that was…

High School and Beyond is a national longitudinal study of the cohorts of 1980 high school seniors and sophomores in the United States, intended to provide information through the early adulthood of these students. The machine-readable data file (MRDF) Language File contains data on each student who responded that he or she had experience in a…

This collection of articles is assembled from a variety of sources and contributors that together form a statewide network of volunteer programs teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to refugees. The articles are divided into the following sections: (1) teaching tips; (2) "talk time" (concerning a weekly conversation session); (3)…

This study looked at the overall situation of the immigrant population, and young immigrants in particular, and analyzed such problem areas as the transition from school to working life and the inadequacies of initial training with relation to the situation in the United Kingdom. The study identified the following problem areas: (1) problems…

The Education for Economic Security Act requires state education agencies to submit comprehensive needs assessments in order to receive the funding provided by Title II of the Act for improvements in mathematics, science, computer learning, and foreign language instruction. Areas of need covered in this summary include: the qualifications of…

In its fourth year, Project MASTER served 477 Spanish-speaking students in 5 elementary schools in the Bronx. The teaching strategy was holistic, integrating all aspects of the curriculum with English-language learning through science projects. The project developed curriculum materials, stressing attitudes toward and knowledge of science topics,…

Articles in this first special focus issue in Cross Currents' 18-year history include the following: "Courses or Resources" (Alan Maley); "Linguistic Pragmatics and English Language Learning" (S. Kathleen Kitao); "Arriving at the Himalayan Range: Language Learning and Teacher Training" (Subhash Jain); "The Fear…

While language programs often include a cultural component as a requirement for language majors or as an option for other students, there is little agreement about the design of a civilization component for serious programs in languages for business. Although the traditional approach to cultural education is valid, a curriculum focusing on…

This handbook, designed to help high school teachers remodel their lesson plans, has one basic objective: to demonstrate that it is possible and practical to integrate instruction for critical thinking into the teaching of all subjects. The handbook discusses the concept of critical thinking and the principles that underlie it and shows how…

This discussion of the quality of higher education examines how and why academic institutions are failing to provide students with a meaningful undergraduate education, and what can and should be done about it. It argues that colleges and universities, in an attempt to simultaneously provide an academic education and train students for careers,…

One teacher's experiences in incorporating non-hierarchic learning assumptions and values in the second language classroom, especially through the use of dialogue journals, are reported. In the first part, observations of accuracy-based classroom language teaching are contrasted with the meaning-based acquisition model. Six salient characteristics…

An instructional strategy designed to meet the needs of limited-English-proficient (LEP) adult students grouped heterogeneously in classes is presented. The approach is intended to assist in curriculum design and implementation in situations in which, because of limited student numbers, students in adult basic education, English as a Second…

In the 1988-89 school year, Bilingualism in the Computer Age completed its final year of instruction at Morris High School in the Bronx. The project provided bilingual instructional and support services to 240 Spanish-speaking students of limited English proficiency (LEP) and utilized computers to develop students' English skills and native…