This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Feliciano Chimbutane, Esther Geva, Concetta T. Pucci, Carol Brochin Ceballos, Harry Knoors, Janet Scull, Carol Benson, Renata Aliani, Kristen C. Harmon, and Sonja Novak-Lukanovic.
(2012). Language Policy in Slovenia, Language, Culture and Curriculum. The historical background, political changes, migration processes, EU membership and the current socio-linguistic situation have all influenced language policy and language planning in Slovenia. This article presents the most important aspects of language policy in Slovenia with a focus on the concept of linguistic diversity. The ethnic make-up of Slovenia, including the differing statuses and rights of specific groups, is described in order to facilitate an understanding of language policy. The role of language within education is explored, in particular in relation to bilingual education in ethnically mixed areas. Two models of bilingual education (involving Slovene plus Italian or Hungarian) are presented and finally pupils' attitudes towards these models and the minority language involved, obtained through an empirical research project, are discussed. [More] Descriptors: Language Planning, Bilingual Education, Language Role, Foreign Countries
(2014). Exploring Pre-Service EFL Teachers' Beliefs about Their Roles in an Elementary School Classroom in Regard to Pedagogical and Emotional Aspects of Students, HOW. This article aims at exploring the beliefs of a group of pre-service teachers from a B.Ed. program in Bilingual Education in Bogotá (Colombia), regarding their role as teachers in some general pedagogical and emotional aspects of their primary school students inside the classroom. They were observed over 16 weeks during their pre-service practice and were asked to submit weekly log entries with pedagogical reflections on their performance. Results show that these pre-service teachers believe motivation and identification of their students' academic needs to be their main role inside the classroom. [More] Descriptors: Preservice Teachers, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction
(2014). Examining Arizona's Policy Response Post "Flores v. Arizona" in Educating K-12 English Language Learners, Journal of Latinos and Education. This article provides an analysis of Arizona's policy response in educating English language learners by conducting a narrative review. A critical Latina/o theory approach was used to analyze the data. This study reveals 5 salient policy responses: (a) severely limit bilingual education, (b) develop controversial funding solutions, (c) implement a segregated 4-hr English language development block, (d) mandate structured English immersion-focused teacher preparation, and (e) develop disputed identification and classification instruments. The available data suggest that these policies have negatively impacted the educational experience and academic attainment of English language learners. [More] Descriptors: State Policy, Educational Policy, English Language Learners, Hispanic American Students
(2009). Bilingual Education and English Proficiency. Discussion Paper Series. DP 2009-01, University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research. English Learners, students who are not proficient in English and speak a non-English language at home, make up more than 10 percent of the nation's K-12 student body. Achieving proficiency in English for these students is a major goal of both state and federal education policy, motivating the provision of bilingual education policies. Using data for nearly 500,000 English Learners from California, I show that students in bilingual education have substantially lower English proficiency than other English Learners in first and second grades. In contrast, there is little difference between bilingual education and other programs for students in grades three through five. These results hold across fixed effects, propensity score, and instrumental variables models. (Four appendixes are included: (1) OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) Results; (2) Instrumental Variables First Stage Results–Instruments are Measures of Proposition-227 Induced Changes in School-Level Bilingual Education Availability; (3) Instrumental Variables First Stage Results–Instrument is the Percentage of "Yes" Votes on Proposition 227; and [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Second Language Learning, Bilingualism, English (Second Language)
(2012). Expanded Spaces for Mozambican Languages in Primary Education: Where Bottom-up Meets Top-down, International Multilingual Research Journal. This article describes how 16 Mozambican languages–and counting–have been brought into primary education in Mozambique through a 2002 curriculum reform, and how they are faring in light of tensions between general aspirations for dominant languages and public demand for bilingual education. Bilingual education based on learners' home languages, as one of three optional "modalities" of the reform, has grown in popularity since piloting in the 1990s, and classroom- and community-level actors are making considerable contributions, assisted by middle-level scholars and organizations. Although official policy has not been accompanied by allocation of resources at the top, it appears that implementational spaces (Hornberger, 2005) are being filled from the stakeholder level, contributing to ownership of bilingual programs and satisfaction with promoting local languages and cultures. Given current limitations at the top and middle, the question is whether the bottom can sustain implementation. [More] Descriptors: Curriculum Development, Elementary Education, Bilingual Education, Bilingual Education Programs
(2016). Bilingual Education in a Community Language: Lessons from a Longitudinal Study, Language and Education. Provision for students learning English as an additional language (EAL) frequently overlooks the linguistic resources these children bring to the classroom. This is despite international research that highlights the facilitative links between support of the home language and the acquisition of new languages. This article reports on a longitudinal study of Karen–English bilingual learning in the early years at one culturally and linguistically diverse primary school. It analyses classroom observation and student achievement data, work samples, staff interviews, parent questionnaires, and student self-assessments to build a rich evidence base that attests to the advantages afforded by plurilingual opportunities in what are often staunchly monolingual classroom contexts. The importance of additive language policies and pedagogies for EAL students in mainstream classes is reinforced by this study, and a framework is proposed whereby bilingual education focusing on community languages can be successfully operationalised. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Academic Achievement
(2012). Literacies at the Border: Transnationalism and the Biliteracy Practices of Teachers across the US-Mexico Border, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. This article examines the role of transnational literacy practices in the biliteracy development of Mexican-American teachers who grew up on both sides of the US-Mexico borderlands. Through an analysis of literacy narratives and language history maps of bilingual education pre-service teachers, the pre-service teachers recall their memories as transnational immigrant children and the ways in which their unofficial schooling experiences shaped their development of biliteracy outside of school. As most of the case study participants had little or no access to bilingual education beyond the assimilation model, these return trips back and forth afforded them opportunities to maintain their Spanish biliteracy and bicultural identities. These teachers lived in transnational spaces and recall the ways in which growing up on the border shaped their bilingual and biliteracy development. [More] Descriptors: Immigrants, Bilingual Education, Foreign Countries, Bilingualism
(2014). How Do Changes in the Language of Instruction and Classroom Composition Affect English Learners?, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. The number of students that live in families where a language other than English is spoken has risen relative to the English-only households in the United States over the last 25 years. These students face the dual challenge of mastering English while acquiring academic skills and knowledge. The education of these students has been shaped by several national- and state- level legal decisions of the past that have required schools to take action by providing services to help linguistic minority students overcome language barriers that impede their equal participation. Those services most often take the form of either an "English-immersion" approach, in which students receive all instruction in English, or employ a "bilingual model" where students are initially taught in some combination of English and their native language and eventually transfer to English-only classrooms. The question of which model of instruction is more "effective" has been notoriously difficult to answer and remains an open and controversial debate. The authors of this article take advantage of a policy passed in California that changed the default instructional program for ELs . Prior to 1998, most ELs were placed into bilingual education. This state-level legislation forced schools to move students to move to a different instructional setting–a change that would not had been chosen otherwise–providing a natural experiment opportunity to evaluate the effect of bilingual education versus English immersion on the academic achievement of ELs. Also analyzed is how changes in the composition of the classroom affect the academic achievement of students. Findings indicate that the achievement scores of ELs declined by the switch from bilingual education to English immersion programs, with the exception of grades 2-3 reading scores. The authors also found that there is a beneficial effect of placing ELs into classrooms with more native English speakers. Tables and figures are appended. [More] Descriptors: Language of Instruction, English Language Learners, Classroom Environment, Barriers
(2015). The Commodification of English in "Madrid, Comunidad Bilingüe": Insights from the CLIL Classroom, Language Policy. This article analyzes how multilingual education in the Madrid region has been addressed through the medium of Spanish/English content and language integrated learning (CLIL) bilingual programs, widely implemented in public schools of this region in the last decade. By adopting a critical interpretive perspective (Tollefson in "Language policies in education: critical issues". Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2002) to the understanding of bilingual education in the Madrid region, the article explores the links between current CLIL classroom practices, local and European language education policies and wider social and ideological processes of globalization and neoliberalism in late modernity. Particularly, the article analyzes the commodification of CLIL programs by examining how local values and beliefs about bilingualism and the prestige of English as Europe's lingua franca intersect with situated notions of who counts as a bilingual student in the CLIL classroom and the emergent categorization of elistism assigned to bilingual programs in Madrid. Drawing on data collected as part of the team critical sociolinguistic ethnography conducted at "Villababel High", the article discusses specifically language choice in the CLIL classroom as a key practice to understand the tensions involved in bilingual education policy in late modernity. [More] Descriptors: Bilingualism, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Course Content
(2016). Through the Lens of Teachers in Two Bilingual Programmes: A Look at Early Bilingual Education, Language, Culture and Curriculum. Educators and researchers increasingly recognise the impact of language policies on bilingual education. The present study examined the similarities and differences in how the teachers and principals in two different contexts, a Mandarin-English bilingual programme in a Canadian kindergarten and elementary school and a Russian-Hebrew bilingual preschool programme in Israel, understood their language programmes and made curriculum decisions with respect to instructional time for each language. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five teachers, two principals and a programme manager from the two programmes. Four main themes emerged from the data analysis: (1) experiences in the search for an ideal language programme, (2) challenges arising in realising the bilingual programmes; (3) looking ahead and (4) a flexible and creative approach towards a language separation model. Despite differences in programme ideology and student demographics, findings showed that staff in both contexts faced similar challenges. Educational implications are discussed in relation to the findings. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Teacher Attitudes, Mandarin Chinese, Semitic Languages
(2016). Coordinated Translanguaging Pedagogy as Distributed Cognition: A Case Study of Two Dual Language Bilingual Education Preschool Coteachers' Languaging Practices during Shared Book Readings, International Multilingual Research Journal. This study examined how a pair of Spanish/English dual language bilingual education (DLBE) preschool teachers enacted their bilingualism while working cohesively and simultaneously toward common instructional goals. We drew on classroom video data, field notes, and other relevant artifacts collected weekly during shared readings of English- and Spanish-language storybooks over the course of one academic year to document coteachers' book-based interactions with each other and their students. Guided by translanguaging (O. García, 2009a, 2009b; O. García & Wei, 2014) and distributive cognition (Brown & Campione, 1996; Hutchins, 1995) frameworks, findings elucidate how teachers drew on their own and each other's dynamic bilingualism through both monolingual and bilingual performances, supporting the coordination of instructional targets (e.g., vocabulary, narrative genre) and instructional practices (e.g., translation, explanation). Findings have implications for DLBE program language policy and practice as they highlight the utility of a bilingual pedagogy. [More] Descriptors: Teaching Methods, Code Switching (Language), Bilingual Education, English (Second Language)
(2014). How Deaf American Sign Language/English Bilingual Children Become Proficient Readers: An Emic Perspective, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. A primary tenet underlying American Sign Language/English bilingual education for deaf students is that early access to a visual language, developed in conjunction with language planning principles, provides a foundation for literacy in English. The goal of this study is to obtain an emic perspective on bilingual deaf readers transitioning from "learning to read to reading to learn." Analysis of 12 interactive, semi-structured interviews identified informal and formal teaching and learning practices in ASL/English bilingual homes and classrooms. These practices value, reinforce, and support the bidirectional acquisition of both languages and provide a strong foundation for literacy. [More] Descriptors: Deafness, American Sign Language, English, Oral Communication Method
(2012). Language Planning for the 21st Century: Revisiting Bilingual Language Policy for Deaf Children, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. For over 25 years in some countries and more recently in others, bilingual education involving sign language and the written/spoken vernacular has been considered an essential educational intervention for deaf children. With the recent growth in universal newborn hearing screening and technological advances such as digital hearing aids and cochlear implants, however, more deaf children than ever before have the potential for acquiring spoken language. As a result, the question arises as to the role of sign language and bilingual education for deaf children, particularly those who are very young. On the basis of recent research and fully recognizing the historical sensitivity of this issue, we suggest that language planning and language policy should be revisited in an effort to ensure that they are appropriate for the increasingly diverse population of deaf children. [More] Descriptors: Deafness, Language Planning, Speech, Sign Language
(2012). Arbitrating Repression: Language Policy and Education in Arizona, Language and Education. In 2000, voters in the US state of Arizona passed Proposition 203 "English for the Children," effectively abolishing bilingual education services in favor of a submersion approach termed Sheltered English Immersion. In this discussion, I use an ethnographic lens to highlight the logistical complexities involved in the negotiation of restrictive educational language policies between macro levels of development, meso levels of interpretation and micro levels of educational application. By looking at language policy as a sociocultural process, I reveal how Arizona's anti-bilingual education policy has unfolded across various levels of bureaucracy and been enacted in schools where the majority of students come from an immigrant background. Specifically, the current study explores how Proposition 203 has affected patterns of language use in predominantly language-minority classrooms by illustrating the influence of key policy arbiters within politically repressive environments. [More] Descriptors: State Government, Voting, Barriers, Bilingual Education
(2014). Developing a Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages, Language Documentation & Conservation. The fluctuating fortunes of Northern Territory bilingual education programs in Australian languages and English have put at risk thousands of books developed for these programs in remote schools. In an effort to preserve such a rich cultural and linguistic heritage, the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages project is establishing an open access, online repository comprising digital versions of these materials. Using web technologies to store and access the resources makes them accessible to the communities of origin, the wider academic community, and the general public. The process of creating, populating, and implementing such an archive has posed many interesting technical, cultural and linguistic challenges, some of which are explored in this paper. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Indigenous Populations, Languages, Archives