Two recent reports offer some paradigm-shifting proposals regarding the teaching of world languages in general at the undergraduate level. The Modern Language Association's (MLA's) "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" and "Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature"…

This article examines the role of linguistic and sociolinguistic factors in the second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish vibrants. The data consist of 2 sets of recordings from 37 students enrolled in a Spanish pronunciation class. The statistical program VarbRul was used to analyze 7,597 samples. The vibration (simple or multiple) and the…

This article explores the nature of instruction provided to Latino English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities. The case of a bilingual teacher who worked with an ELL with disabilities is presented. This teacher's voice describes her practice, beliefs, and other factors influencing her work with ELLs with disabilities. Finally, the…

This article is based on results from a baseline study for an intended intervention project in bilingual-intercultural education in the Municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, in the Department of San Marcos, Guatemala. To a great extent the article deals with issues of bilingual education from the perspective of social justice. It analyses the…

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the ACTFL suggest that a high proficiency in the Spanish language is essential for all Spanish teachers. With the growth of the Spanish-speaking population in the United States and the diversity of Hispanic culture, teacher education programs need to ensure that teacher candidates are…

The aim of this paper is to share the conclusions of a recent ethnographic study carried out in Madrid from 2005 to 2008 to analyze the effects of a program implemented by the Community of Madrid, Spain, to address diversity in schools. The Program was given an English name--"Welcome Schools"--and was aimed at preparing children recently…

To date, research on immigrant Latino students has neglected to fully explore the school experiences of immigrants from Oaxaca, a community that has historically experienced economic, political, social, and cultural oppression in Mexico and now in the United States. Drawing from formal and informal interviews and observations, I examine the high…

The literature generally assumes that object clitic omission is equally allowed in all child languages. In this paper we challenge this claim by means of an elicitation experiment carried out with children acquiring two closely related languages, Catalan and Spanish. Our results show that while omission is high in young Catalan-speaking children,…

Objectives: This article describes the process of developing a culturally based family intervention for Spanish-speaking Latino families with a relative diagnosed with schizophrenia. Method: Our iterative intervention development process was guided by a cultural exchange framework and based on findings from an ethnographic study. We piloted this…

This article presents a study of a between-subjects design experiment on the comprehension of telicity in simple telic predicates (e.g., "John filled the bucket") and locatum predicates (e.g., "the water filled the bucket") in L1 Spanish. Weist, Wysocka, and Lyytinen (1991) for English and Finnish, and Van Hout (1997, 1998b) for English and Dutch…

Using the National Standards' 5 C's as a framework, the authors examine student success in Spanish community service-learning at making connections across academic disciplines, to information and viewpoints that they encounter in the community, and to concrete social action. We use data from students, instructors, and community partners involved…

The purpose of this study was to determine which of two educational interventions delivered in Spanish would influence Latino elders' attitudes toward and comfort with end-of-life planning in comparison with a control group receiving only standard information routinely provided. Using a posttest-only control group design, elders receiving home…

Simultaneous speech and turn-taking patterns vary considerably across cultures. Research on varieties of Spanish has confirmed that frequent, lengthy overlaps within and between turns are common. In this paper it is suggested that when speakers engage in simultaneous talk, they observe Grice's Cooperative Principle by adjusting their utterances so…

This article reports on an investigation of high-school students' motivations to study Spanish. An online Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to 631 students and 19 teachers. The most influential factors were determined and a principal axis factor analysis with Promax rotation was performed on the responses. The data indicated that the…

The present study investigates the locus of language selection in less and more proficient language learners, specifically testing differential predictions of La Heij's (2005) concept selection model (CSM) and Kroll and Stewart's (1994) revised hierarchical model (RHM). Less and more proficient English dominant learners of Spanish participated in…