Education Commons^™

“Why Do We Do This?” Reflections Of A Two-Way Immersion School Principal On The Roles Of Parents, Teachers, And Her Own, In The Program, Franciso Ramos

Franciso Ramos

The present article offers the reflections of the principal of the longest-running two-way immersion school in Southern California on some of the key factors positively impacting the program, namely parental involvement, teacher commitment, and principal support. Additionally, it includes some of the critical challenges she must continuously face as part of her job, i.e., scarcity of qualified and minority language proficient teachers, lack of funding and adequate materials in the minority language, as well as the impact of federal and state education laws on the autonomy of the program. She also gave some recommendations, based on her professional experience, for …

The Effects Of Sign Language On Second Language Acquisition, Itzel Mejia-Menendez

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

This action research project examined the effects of sign language on the ability of primary students to learn new Spanish vocabulary in a bilingual Montessori classroom. The research took place at a public charter Montessori school in Washington, District of Columbia. Twenty-seven primary school aged children were included in this seven-week study. Sources of data collection included a parent-teacher questionnaire, a baseline assessment, daily observation logs, a daily checklist, a weekly journal, and a summative assessment. Students were grouped by Spanish fluency and taught eight different vocabulary words in Spanish. Half of the words were taught alongside a sign in …

Bilingual French Initiatives In Public Schools: A New York Story: New Opportunities, Diversity And Shared History And Values, Claire Jm Arnod Horikawa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The French bilingual programs in New York City public schools show the liveliness and diversity of the Francophonie. The French dual language programs in particular also reunite very different interests. There are the expected interests of communities wanting to keep a home language strong. Francophone parents wanting their children to use the language as an asset for a head start in the education race. English speaking parents, attracted by the language and its culture and wanting to give a head start to their monolingual children, as the world of business, and of science is multilingual. Schools and school principals are …

The Language And Literacy Development Of Young Dual Language Learners: A Critical Review, Carol Scheffner Hammer, Erika Hoff, Yuuko Uchikoshi, Cristina Gillanders, Dina Castro, Lia Sandlos

Cristina Gillanders

The number of children living in the United States who are learning two languages is increasing greatly. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the language and literacy development of dual language learners (DLLs), particularly during the early childhood years. To summarize the extant literature and guide future research, a critical analysis of the literature was conducted. A search of major databases for studies on young typically developing DLLs between 2000 and 2011 yielded 182 peer-reviewed articles. Findings about DLL children's developmental trajectories in the various areas of language and literacy are presented. Much of these findings should be …

Using Tops For Identification Of Gifted Hispanic Students, Barbara Martin

Dissertations

USING TOPS FOR IDENTIFICATION OF GIFTED HISPANIC STUDENTS

Researchers have noted an underrepresentation of Hispanic ELL students in gifted education. A literature review revealed several problems encountered when assessing and identifying gifted Hispanics and have also suggested a variety of solutions including use of non-standardized alternative assessments. In this project, the researcher explored the attitudes of educators regarding the addition of a non-standardized tool. The TOPS is a non-standardized tool used to systematically gather and document qualitative observational data within the context of instruction (Harradine, Coleman, & Winn, 2014). The researcher used both a survey questionnaire and a semi-structured interview …

The Spanish-English Bilingual: A Cross-Classfication Comparison Of Maze Use In Children, Jessica Valles

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the continual increase of bilingual individuals in the United States, there is a critical need for research that can appropriately identify unique characteristics of language production for these individuals. In particular, maze use, or errors in production have been identified as a characteristic of language that typically occurs more in bilinguals' speech production than in monolingual productions. Research comparing bilingual maze use in individuals who are typically developing with bilingual maze use individuals who are language impaired is limited. To compare these bilingual children with language impairment with to their typically developing peers, children were paired by age, grade, …