It is well established that monolingual preschoolers' oral language development (vocabulary and oral comprehension) contributes to their later reading abilities; however, less is known about this relationship in bilingual populations where children are developing knowledge of two languages. It may be that children's abilities in one language do…

This article examines the acquisition of Spanish idioms in a classroom setting that was supplemented with explicit instruction over a 10-week period. The research design manipulated two variables: prior lexical knowledge and idiom organization. Sixty-five second language (L2) learners completed pre- and posttests that measured their ability to…

In their study of language ideology, Valdes, Gonzalez, Lopez Garcia, and Marquez (2003) found evidence of a pervasive monolingualist ideology or "discourse of monolingualism" in college-level Spanish departments. This discourse, which mirrors national language ideologies in the United States, is premised on notions of nationalism, linguistic…

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a Tier 2 standard protocol supplemental intervention designed simultaneously to develop root word vocabulary and reinforce decoding skills being taught to all students in the core beginning reading program with kindergarten Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). Participating students were…

We evaluated whether differences in treatment effectiveness or preference between languages emerged across Spanish and English during functional communication training (FCT) for young children with developmental disabilities exposed to Spanish and English in the home environment. Participants were 2 young children with developmental disabilities…

Discrete trial training was delivered using English and Spanish languages to a student with autism from a Spanish-speaking family. An alternating treatments design was used to examine the effects of language of instruction on the child's response accuracy and challenging behavior. More correct responses and fewer challenging behaviors occurred…

This article reports the efforts of an elementary school teacher of Spanish as a second language to implement principles of dynamic assessment (DA) in her daily interactions with learners. DA is neither an assessment instrument nor a method of assessing but a framework for conceptualizing teaching and assessment as an integrated activity of…

Many classrooms have interactive whiteboards and several computers and many schools are equipped with a computer lab and mobile labs. However, there typically are not enough computers for every student in each classroom; mobile labs are often shared between several members of a team and time in the computer labs needs to be scheduled in advance.…

This article analyzes twelve English translations of the Biscayan squire's speech ("Don Quijote de la Mancha", Chapter Eight) published between 1612 and 2000. The solutions found fall into three categories, namely (a) using standard English and risking misrepresenting the style of the original and omitting relevant cultural connotations, (b) using…

Dual enrollment is now a nation-wide phenomenon as all 50 states currently offer some form of dual-enrollment program to secondary-school students (Karp, Bailey, Hughes, and Fermin 2005). However, dual enrollment itself is often difficult to define as programs vary from school to school (Jordan, Cavalluzzo, and Corallo 2006). Therefore, language…

The present study investigates the processing of Spanish gender agreement during an online comprehension task. The linguistic variables examined are the noun class (semantic or non-semantic) and gender (masculine or feminine) of the head and attractor nouns, head noun morphology (overt or non-overt), and noun class and gender congruencies (matched…

Developing literacy and language proficiency in English is essential to thrive in school and in the workforce in American society. Research on cross-linguistic influences on text-level skills is scant, especially studies investigating reading comprehension among language-minority adults. The present study investigated the effects of…

While it is generally accepted that literature fosters (inter)cultural learning, few qualitative studies have sought to understand in what ways interculturality is developed. This article investigates the development of Spanish L2 students' intercultural awareness through the reading of a short story entitled "Norma y Ester" by Argentine…

The number of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States has increased dramatically. Given this increase it is vital for teacher education programs at the pre-service level and professional learning programs at eh in-service level to address the needs of ELLs. This article presents a teacher preparation model--"a language-based…

The importance of input factors for bilingual children's vocabulary development was investigated. Forty-seven Argentine, 42 South Korean, 51 European American, 29 Latino immigrant, 26 Japanese immigrant, and 35 Korean immigrant mothers completed checklists of their 20-month-old children's productive vocabularies. Bilingual children's vocabulary…