Education Commons^™

Translanguaging Through Story: Empowering Children To Use Their Full Language Repertoire, Erin E. Flynn, Selena L. Hoy, Jessica L. Lea, Monica A. Garcia

Erin Elizabeth Flynn

Translanguaging through story documents the progression of an emerging bilingual preschooler who draws on his full linguistic repertoire to story his experiences with others. Over the course of the school year, Diego progresses in his ability to tell a complete story in both English and Spanish. Repeated engagement in storytelling provides the support needed for Diego to continue and extend ideas in his stories and in his drawing and play. The case shows how opening the space for children to use their full language repertoire enables a child to reciprocally develop named languages like English and Spanish as he improves …

Spiral Of Decline Or “Beacon Of Hope:” Stories Of School Choice In A Dual Language School, Timothy Pearson, Jennifer R. Wolgemuth, Soria Elizabeth Colomer

Jennifer Wolgemuth

Public schools in some areas of the U.S. are as segregated as they were prior to court-ordered busing, in part due to school choice policies that appear to exacerbate extant segregation. In particular, Latina/o students are increasingly isolated in schools characterized as being in cycles of decline. Our case study of one such school is based on a reanalysis of interview, focus group, and survey data from three research and evaluation projects. We constructed accounts of parents’ decisions to leave and remain at Martinez Elementary, a segregated dual language school experiencing increases in Latina/o and low socio-economic student enrollment and …

Filipino Parents’ Opinions About Bilingualism And Bilingual Education Programs: Does Information Affect Support?, Francisco Ramos

Franciso Ramos

Seventy-eight Filipino parents were surveyed on their opinions about bilingualism, the underlying principles of bilingual education, and placement of students in instructional programs that include a native language component. Fifty-two parents were in the comparison group, and twenty-six parents were in the experimental group. Parents in the experimental group received a phone call during which the rationale and objectives of bilingual programs were explained to them. Support for the underlying principles of bilingual education was stronger among the parents in the group. A large number of the parents had never received any information about programs that included a native language …

Promoting Bilingualism In School In Two Different Contexts: The English-Spanish Bilingual Programs In The United States, Francisco Ramos

Franciso Ramos

Education authorities in several American states and the Andalusian autonomous community have made great efforts to implement programs in their territories bilingual in English and Spanish in order to improve the language proficiency of students in both languages. American programs were first established in the early 60s Andalusians, meanwhile, they were recently created. This article briefly describes the theoretical foundation, goals, origin and distribution of languages in the programs. The article concludes with a summary of studies conducted in the United States on different aspects of programs that can serve as a guide for those wishing Andalusian scholars to investigate …

Referendums Education In The United States: Reform Or Assimilation?, Francisco Ramos

Franciso Ramos

The antibilingüe movement that is spreading across the United States has become one of the most controversial in the debate on the education of linguistic minorities issues. Ron Unz, the California millionaire who has managed to eliminate bilingual programs in California and Arizona and trying to do the same today in Colorado and Massachusetts, is a clear example of assimilationist movement, which argues that immigrants should give up their languages and vernacular cultures to integrate into American society. This article summarizes the history of bilingualism in the United States, focusing on decisions that have affected the education of minority students, …

Building On The Cultural And Linguistic Capital Of English Learner (El) Students, Kathryn Brooks, Katya Karathanos

Kathryn Brooks

...While our nation has a long history of competing ideologies and political controversies related to English immersion (in which the primary language of instruction is English) programs versus bilingual education, scholars contend that these two educational approaches need not be conceptualized as dichotomous. Rather, when educators consider what approaches and strategies will provide the best opportunities for particular students to learn in particular contexts, they must bear in mind that for EL students, their native languages and cultures are key resources to draw upon for teaching both content and language (Lucas & Katz, 1994). They must also think about how …

Hispanic Preservice Teachers’ Peer Evaluations Of Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development: A Self-Referenced Comparison Between Monolingual Generalists And Bilingual Generalists, Song An, Daniel Tillman, Meilan Zhang, William H. Robertson, Josefina Tinajero

William H. Robertson

Addressing Linguistic Diversity From The Outset, Nancy Commins, Ofelia Miramontes

Nancy L. Commins

Schools of education typically prepare their prospective teachers to work with amorphous “average students”—who are by implication middle class, native, English speaking, and White. They are then given some limited opportunities to adapt these understandings to students with diverging profiles—children of poverty, second language learners, and students of color. The authors argue that given the changing demographics of public schools, initial teacher education should be based on the understandings that teachers typically do not receive until the end of their programs or in add-on endorsements. They should be prepared from the outset to work with the wide diversity of language, …

The Vote On Bilingual Education And Latino Identity In Massachusetts, Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

In November 2002, the Massachusetts electorate voted overwhelmingly to pass Referendum Ballot Question 2 (Q. 2), sponsored by California millionaire Ron Unz. The passage of this initiative by close to 70% of the voters effectively ended bilingual education in the state as it had been known for thirty years. Exit polling done at selected cities in Massachusetts by the Mauricio Gaston Institute and UMass Poll revealed, however, that out of a total 1,491 Latinos polled, a vast majority of them, around 93%, had voted in favor of rejecting Q. 2 and keeping bilingual education in place. Indeed, Q. 2 became …

When Indigenous Immigrant Students Come To Us: Bilingual Education And Indigenous Rights In The 21st Century -- An Untold Story, Laura A. Valdiviezo

Laura A. Valdiviezo

A view of bilingual education beyond borders allows us to understand the complex dimensions of the work of advocates and educators in the United States. Certainly, the history of bilingual education is intimately related to the history of border crossings and immigration that lays at the core of the building of the United States and that continues to impact what happens in schools every day. The untold story accompanies the immigrant parent who approaches the school for the first time and the newly arrived children who meet their teacher and fellow students in a multilingual setting. As educators we understand …

How To Tame A Wild Tongue: Language Rights In The United States, Panayota Gounari

Panayota Gounari

The call for a "common language" and a "shared identity that makes us Americans" not only hides a more pernicious social and cultural agenda but it is also part of the present attempt toward the 'reorganization of a 'cultural hegemony' as evidenced in the conservatives on the multiplicity of languages spoken in the United States. This ultimately guarantees that these groups will remain repressed, marginalized and cut off from the wealth of resources that the dominant group has full access. As a result, the current debate over bilingual education has very little to do with language per se; the real …

A Review Of The Literature On Bilingual Education, Lorna Rivera

Lorna Rivera

Changes in bilingual education will have an important impact on the future well-being of the growing Latino community in Massachusetts. This report summarizes some of the major research findings regarding the purposes and effectiveness of bilingual education. Questions that will be addressed include: What are the existing bilingual education models? Which bilingual education models work best? Should there be time limits for bilingual education? Do immigrants resist learning English? Does speaking another language interfere with learning? Should bilingual students be exempt from state-mandated testing? Are bilingual teachers qualified? Are bilingual education students more likely to dropout? It is hoped that …

Bilingual Teacher Beliefs And Practice: Do They Line Up?, Claudia Peralta Nash, Celia Den Hartog King

Claudia Peralta

A qualitative study used observation and collection of artifacts to examine the pedagogical strategies of six teachers; four taught in a two-way bilingual education school, while the other two were first-year teachers in a school setting with large numbers of English language learners. Informal interviews were conducted throughout the time of the study; semi-structured interviews were conducted at the end of a semester of observation and recording of field notes. Some interviews attempted to uncover the beliefs teachers had about student learning, and in particular, that of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Teachers were asked about the influences and sources …

School And Family [Chapter 6], H. Adamson, Ellen Courtney

Ellen H Courtney

No abstract provided.