Research in effective programming for English language learners has demonstrated the efficacy of dual language education as a model for closing persistent achievement gaps for this growing population of students. With goals of high academic achievement, linguistic proficiency in two languages, and cross-cultural proficiency, dual language…

This article analyses the status and future of bilingual education programs using Indigenous languages and English in remote Northern Territory schools. It explains why this educational approach is so contested at present, resulting in an unresolved situation which can best be regarded as an uneasy compromise on the ground and a stalemate at…

This study of 1,338 Spanish-speaking 1st graders examined contextual effects of bilingual programs on reading comprehension and the effect of language of instruction within these contexts. The study included 128 classrooms in 32 schools located in border Texas and in urban Texas and California. These classrooms used either English immersion or…

This report provides an update on the Transitional Bilingual Instruction Program (TBIP). In 2012-13, 104,025 English language learners (ELLs) received state services through the TBIP. This was an increase of just over 9% from the previous year. Most students live in urban areas along Interstate 5 corridor and in rural areas like the Yakima Valley.…

More than 20% of U.S. children entering kindergarten today are of Latino heritage. And Latino children--growing-up in highly diverse communities--enter school with weaker math and English preliteracy skills than their non-Latino peers. The growing percentage of Spanish-speaking children in today's classrooms raises questions for educators,…

Deaf learners whose first language is American Sign Language face particular challenges and constraints in developing literacy in English as a second language. These constraints are interrogated and discussed in terms of their relationship to issues of language proficiency in both L1 and L2, and to models of second language literacy education.…

Many urban classrooms are facing an influx of students who are transient, part of migrant families who decide to reside in cities and large urban centers looking for financial stability and better educational opportunities for their children. This represents a different challenge for English as a second language, bilingual, and mainstream teachers…

Between 1979 and 2008, the number of school-age children (ages 5-17) in the United States who spoke a language other than English at home increased from 3.8 to 10.9 million, or from 9 to 21 percent of the population in this age range, according to the latest figures from the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES). The NCES also reveals…

Bilingual education is thought to be one of the principal means of simultaneously revitalizing threatened language and preparing students for success in mainstream society. However, little research has examined, in a comprehensive and longitudinal fashion, bilingual programs in Aboriginal contexts. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to conduct…

This article traces the ways in which New York City schools have responded to the multilingualism of its children in the last forty years. I review here the past to construct the future--the future of the past. I argue that in the predominantly Puerto Rican community of the 1960s and 1970s a simple approach toward languages and bilingualism in…

Bilingual education has taken center stage in Illinois with a new education mandate; many public preschools will be required to offer bilingual education to all three- and four-year-olds who do not speak English. Dual-language (DL) classrooms represent one very promising model in bilingual education that is being used to develop these new…

A dual immersion program in Chinese and English at the 3e International School in Beijing is helping children become fluent in both languages, even though many students spoke neither language when they entered the school. Children enter the program as young as two years old. Studies indicate that bilingual children have higher levels of cognitive…

The paper offers a retrospective evaluation of recent evaluative studies of bilingual programs in the Australian state of Victoria, in an attempt to determine how successfully the evaluation process met the dual criteria of external accountability and development. The programs in question were located in primary or secondary government schools and…

A large and growing number of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in the US and around the world have the potential to develop bilingualism and biliteracy if supported in their immediate environment. At the forefront in focusing exclusively on biliteracy development in early childhood across a variety of languages, this…

In this timely volume, international scholars examine how multilingual schooling is handled in schools across the world with a series of case studies from South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, Colombia, Slovakia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Presenting new contributions arising from the varied contexts of multilingualism today, this collection urges…