Academic literature on the topic 'Bilingual education|Elementary education|Hispanic American studies'

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare oral and written language abilities in English and Spanish of young bilinguals residing in the USA. Methodology: Sixty-two participants (mean age = 23.7; SD = 3.50), consisting of 42 bilinguals (born of Spanish-speaking parents) and 20 English monolinguals, were administered a battery of 15 language tasks. Analysis: Bilinguals were divided into two groups: (a) US-born (simultaneous bilinguals who had been exposed to English and Spanish since birth and educated primarily in English) and (b) Latin American-born (early sequential bilinguals who were educated in Spanish and English, although exposed to Spanish at birth and to English before the age of 10). Findings: Higher lexical ability was demonstrated in English compared to Spanish in bilinguals. Performance in grammar tests of the two languages was inconsistent. Reading/writing ability in English was similar for participants born in the USA and in Latin America; however, participants who were born in Latin America had significantly higher scores for Spanish reading/writing tasks. When comparing performance in English tests, it was found that scores for bilingual participants were similar to those of English monolinguals. Originality: The current study directly compares oral and written language abilities in two subgroups of young Spanish/English bilinguals. Three language dimensions are studied: lexicon/grammar; oral/written language; and language knowledge/language use. Implications: Our results suggest that bilingualism does not interfere with normal linguistic ability in English. Limitations: The current study was carried out in a specific bilingual context. Generalization of these results should be done with caution.

Objectives/research questions: We investigate two understudied bilingual compound verbs that have been attested in Spanish/English code-switching; namely, ‘ hacer + VInf’ and ‘ estar + VProg’. Specifically, we examined speakers’ intuitions vis-à-vis the acceptability and preferential use of non-canonical and canonical hacer ‘to do’ or estar ‘to be’ bilingual constructions among bilinguals from Northern Belize, New Mexico and Puerto Rico. Methodology: Speakers from Northern Belize ( n = 44), New Mexico ( n = 32) and Puerto Rico ( n = 30) completed a two-alternative forced-choice acceptability task and a language background questionnaire. Data and analysis: The data were examined using an analysis of variance and Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment. Conclusions: Whereas Northern Belizean bilinguals gave the highest ratings to ‘ hacer + VInf’, both groups of US bilinguals gave preferential ratings to ‘ estar + VProg’ bilingual constructions. On the other hand, Puerto Rican bilinguals gave the highest preferential ratings to the canonical estar bilingual compound verbs (i.e. estar + an English progressive verb) but rejected hacer bilingual compound verbs. While ‘ hacer + VInf’ and ‘ estar + VProg’ may represent variants that are available to Spanish/English bilinguals, the present findings suggest a community-specific distribution, in which hacer bilingual compound verbs are consistently preferred over estar bilingual compound verbs in Northern Belize, whereas estar bilingual constructions are preferred among US bilinguals. Originality: This is the first cross-community examination of these bilingual compound verbs in Northern Belize (Central America/Caribbean), New Mexico (Southwest US) and Puerto Rico (US/Caribbean), three contexts in the Spanish-speaking world characterized by long-standing Spanish/English language contact and the use of bilingual language practices. Implications: Findings underscore the importance of bilingual language experience in modulating linguistic competence and the necessity to study code-switching from a language ecological perspective, as subtle context-specific patterns in code-switching varieties may be manifested not only in bilingual speakers’ oral production but in intuition as well. A more fine-grained understanding of speakers’ judgments is vital to experimental studies that seek to investigate code-switching grammars both within and across communities where code-switching varieties of the same language pair are spoken.

Despite considerable interest in the identification of minority students for gifted programs, few studies have investigated minority students actually selected for gifted programs. The present study reports on the standardized achievement scores and self-concept levels of African-American (N = 299), Hispanic (N = 52), and white (N = 595) elementary school students placed in gifted or regular school programs. Results indicate that minority students identified for gifted programs scored significantly higher on achievement measures than minority students placed in regular classrooms, although white gifted-program students scored significantly higher than both African-American and Hispanic gifted-program students. There were no minority-group differences in academic or social self-concept. Additional analyses suggested that the distinction between academic and social self-concept used with white students may not be applicable to minority students. This article challenges gifted education to address the conceptual problems and methodological difficulties in interpreting the meaning of standardized achievement test scores for minority students in gifted programs.

Bilingual education, usually a community’s L1 and English continues spreading geographically and across educational systems worldwide. With this expansion, the development of bilingual education approaches is under constant scrutiny. One recent approach is content and language integrated learning (CLIL). European in origin, CLIL can be viewed as an educational or language teaching approach and it refers to the teaching of curricular content and L2 in an integrated manner. This approach has received international attention, yet, how CLIL unfolds in settings outside Europe appears underrepresented in international publications. The aim of this article is to provide a critical review of CLIL in Latin America between 2008 and 2018. We surveyed 64 items (articles, book chapters, and dissertations) published in regional and international outlets: 41 empirical studies, 19 practice-oriented publications, and four reviews. It begins by summarizing the CLIL continuum with a focus on content- and language-driven CLIL and CLIL frameworks. It then provides a synthesis of empirical studies and practice-oriented publications about CLIL in different Latin American settings. The corpus is analyzed following these unifying themes: pedagogy, perceptions and beliefs, teacher education, global citizenship, and language development. From this review, it transpires that Latin American CLIL is mostly implemented and examined from a language-driven perspective in private primary, secondary and higher education. Suggestions and implications for further research and practice are included.

Schools in the United States have experienced changes in their demographic profile during the last half century. During this changing time, schools have experienced court-involved desegregation and have experienced fluctuations in their populations with regard to both race and socioeconomic status. Existing studies on segregation have focused primarily on Black and White students, neglecting the increasing Hispanic population of U.S. schools. This study provides more data to the expanding research on the impact of diversity on student performance. The study examines whether diversity and teacher quality of a school can predict academic performance on state-mandated tests, while controlling for school level poverty. In this quantitative study, the researcher also analyzes whether a difference exists between the predictability of pass rates and advanced pass rates for African American, Hispanic, and White students in Virginia’s elementary schools. The data reveal that the impact of poverty is difficult to disentangle from the issues of diversity and teacher quality but that differences exist among student racial groups in their academic performance response based on school-level poverty, diversity, and teacher quality.

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Speech–language pathologists who speak more than one language and who are members of the American Speech–Language–Hearing Association self-identify in one yes/no question whether they have the proficiency level to be bilingual service providers. This research note describes a preliminary attempt to address the very practical issue of whether and in what circumstances Spanish–English bilinguals can accurately judge their proficiency levels in both languages. The research question is: Will bilingual adults accurately identify their first language and second language proficiency levels using a self-assessment when compared to a commonly used standardized norm-referenced test (SNRT) in both formal and informal contexts across the following outcome measures: (a) overall proficiency; (b) listening; (c) speaking; (d) reading; and (e) writing? Design/methodology/approach: Classification accuracy studies require at least 34 participants. Thirty-nine participants completed the commonly used Language Use Questionnaire (LUQ) self-assessment and the commonly used Woodcock–Muñoz Language Survey SNRT (WMLS-III). For this pre-pilot study, participants were Spanish–English bilingual university students. Data and analysis: Forty likelihood ratios (LRs) were calculated. Benchmarks for interpreting LRs for classification accuracy studies were applied to identify the likelihood of an individual being proficient or non-proficient in two languages. Findings/conclusions: For the overall proficiency and formal speaking proficiency outcomes in Spanish, positive LRs met the benchmark for strong agreement. Originality: The current study is the first to show that Spanish–English bilingual adults can accurately judge their Spanish proficiency levels for two specific outcome measures. Significance/implications: These results are important for two reasons. First, they suggest that Spanish–English bilingual adults can accurately judge their overall proficiency levels in Spanish. Second, they identify which outcome measures from the LUQ and WMLS-III should be considered in a future classification accuracy study.

In this book, Slavin and Calderón demonstrate that school-age Hispanic students in the United States can realize their academic expectations and in the process become capable members of society when they are trained in quality educational programs. The authors' educational research expertise presents readers with a selection of recent studies of elementary and secondary instructional programs targeting Latino students. The book's 10 chapters advance a commanding body of performance data that illustrate how Latino students, like any other students, can be successfully educated and empowered and can even excel in an antagonistic American educational culture. The programs researched include numerous educational models specific to Hispanic students as well as adaptations of other national programs.

This essay describes the Jivaka Project, a pedagogical experiment undertaken at a public liberal arts college outside of Philadelphia. A multi-year ethnographic survey of Buddhist healthcare in the greater metropolitan area, this project has come to constitute a major part of my general education course on American Buddhism. As I argue, this project serves as a model for student-centered, engaged, and inclusive approaches to pedagogy. It is particularly notable for centering the intercultural competency of international and first-generation Asian American students. I discuss how this project was inspired by a bilingual Chinese American student; how it developed into a large-scale effort involving about a hundred students in ethnographic research in Philadelphia’s Asian American neighborhoods; how it was a transformational educational experience for a diverse group of participating students; and how in the process it pushed my pedagogy in a more relevant and personally fulfilling direction.

This meta-analysis extends a previous review of the achievement effects of comprehensive school reform (CSR) programs (Borman, Hewes, Overman, & Brown, 2003). That meta-analysis observed significant effects of well endowed and well-researched programs, but it did not account for race/ethnicity. This article synthesizes 34 cohort or quasi-experimental outcomes of studies that incorporated the policy-critical characteristic of race/ethnicity. Findings: compared with matched traditional schools, the black-white achievement gap narrowed significantly more among students in CSR schools. In addition, the aggregate effects were large, substantially to completely eliminating the achievement gap between African American and non-Hispanic white students in elementary and middle schools. Title I policies before or after the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 seem to have had essentially no impact on the black-white achievement gap. Curricular and testing mandates along with the threat of sanctions without concomitant resource supports seem to have failed. This study suggests that educational achievement inequities need not be America’s destiny. It seems that they could be eliminated through concerted political will and ample resource commitments to evidence-based educational programs.