Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Latino Family Engagement In A Network Of Catholic Bilingual Schools, Gabrielle Oliveira, Eunhye Cho, Olivia Barbieri

Journal of Catholic Education

In this article, we examine how a Network of Catholic Bilingual Schools (NCBS) serves Latino populations by examining the leadership’s narratives of the school services and outreach. By employing a survey with 16 principals in the NCBS, we argue that the rate of engagement is similar between Latino and non-Latino parents, although the nature of the activities varied. Despite the long-held belief that Latino parents are less likely to participate in schooling than non-Latino parents, we found that Latino parents committed their participation in schools across cultural, linguistic, or religious activities. We highlight how principals acknowledge and describe Latino families’ …

Promoting Student Success: Bilingual Education Best Practices And Research Flaws, Lillian Fassero

Senior Honors Theses

This paper first determines the benefits which bilingual education offers and then compares transitional, dual-language, and heritage language maintenance programs. After exploring the outcomes, contexts, and practical implications of the various bilingual programs, this paper explores the oversight in most bilingual studies, which assess students’ syntax and semantics while neglecting their understanding of pragmatics and discourse structures (Maxwell-Reid, 2011). Incorporating information from recent studies which question traditional understandings of bilingualism and argue that biliteracy requires more than grammatical and vocabulary instruction, this paper proposes modifications in current research strategies and suggests best practices for transitional, dual-language, and heritage maintenance programs.

Ii International Colloquium On Languages, Cultures, Identity, In School And Society, International Colloquium

Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Languages, Cultures, Identity in School and Society

The influx of immigrants in countries worldwide, coupled with the challenges associated to the schooling of their children in host countries' schools, makes it more necessary than ever to broaden our knowledge of the linguistic, ethnic, and cultural realities derived from this phenomenon. This is the rationale for the present Colloquium, which revolves around the following topics:

• Individual, school, and societal bilingualism/multilingualism-related issues
• Multi/Transculturalism-related issues in families, schools, and society
• Impact of bi/multilingualism on individuals' and societies' language, culture, and identity
• Impact of multi/transculturalism on individuals' and societies' language, culture, and identity
• Language ideologies, policies, and practices
• Promotion, maintenance, and …

The Effects Of Bilingualism And Multilingualism On Lexical Retrieval, Sarah E. Young

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

This research reviews literature that has been written concerning the positive and negative cognitive impact bilingualism has on the speaker. It then takes this research one step further asking whether increasing the number of languages one speaks slows down the person’s lexical retrieval. Methods include an interview and two tests, the data from which strongly supports the hypothesis mentioned in the literature review that bilingualism slows down lexical processing. This research concludes that having more languages does increase a person’s difficulty with retrieving words on demand.

Key terms: bilingualism, lexical retrieval, RIF, retrieval induced forgetting, aphasia, tip of the tongue, …

Language Assessment Of Bilingual Children, Or "The Line Forms To The Right!", Olga Romero

Thought and Practice: (1987-1991) the Journal of the Graduate School of Bank Street College of Education

Discusses the complexity of language assessment for bilingual children and the implications the right assessment has for success in the classroom.

Cross-Language Synonyms In The Lexicons Of Bilingual Infants: One Language Or Two?, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller

Adjunct Faculty Author Gallery

This study tests the widely-cited claim from Volterra & Taeschner (1978), which is reinforced by Clark's Principle of Contrast (1987), that young simultaneous bilingual children reject cross-language synonyms in their earliest lexicons. The rejection of translation equivalents is taken by Volterra & Taeschner as support for the idea that the bilingual child possesses a single-language system which includes elements from both languages. We examine first the accuracy of the empirical claim and then its adequacy as support for the argument that bilingual children do not have independent lexical systems in each language. The vocabularies of 27 developing bilinguals were recorded …

Cross-Language Synonyms In The Lexicons Of Bilingual Infants: One Language Or Two?, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller

Barbara Zurer Pearson

This study tests the widely-cited claim from Volterra & Taeschner (1978), which is reinforced by Clark's Principle of Contrast (1987), that young simultaneous bilingual children reject cross-language synonyms in their earliest lexicons. The rejection of translation equivalents is taken by Volterra & Taeschner as support for the idea that the bilingual child possesses a single-language system which includes elements from both languages. We examine first the accuracy of the empirical claim and then its adequacy as support for the argument that bilingual children do not have independent lexical systems in each language. The vocabularies of 27 developing bilinguals were recorded …

Patterns Of Interaction In The Lexical Development In Two Languages Of Bilingual Infants, Barbara Pearson, Sylvia Fernandez

Barbara Zurer Pearson

We investigated the extent to which bilingual children follow the same patterns and timetable of lexical development as monolinguals. For a group of 20 simultaneous bilingual (English-Spanish) infants, ages 10 to 30 months, we looked at the patterns of growth in one language in relation to growth in the other and also with respect to growth in both languages combined. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI), standardized parent report forms in Spanish and English, provided measures of lexical growth in two languages at varying intervals within the age range. We plotted the two single-language measures, as well as Total and …

Lexical Development In Bilingual Infants And Toddlers: Comparison To Monolingual Norms, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller

Barbara Zurer Pearson

This study compares lexical development in a sample of 25 simultaneous bilingual and 35 monolingual children for whom semilongitudinal data were collected between the ages of 8 and 30 months. A standardized parent report form, the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (1989), was used to assess the children's receptive and productive vocabulary in English and/or Spanish. A methodology was devised to assess the degree of overlap between the bilingual children's lexical knowledge in one language and their knowledge in the other. Using the measures presented here, there was no statistical basis for concluding that the bilingual children were slower to develop …