This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Hyunjung Shin, Abdelaziz M. Hussien, Peter I. De Costa, Paul Chwialkowski, Inda Schaenen, Texas Education Agency, Nancy H. Hornberger, Bradley Chilton, Yawen Han, and Virginia Unamuno.
(2014). Implementing a Content and Language Integrated Learning Program in New South Wales Primary Schools: Teachers' Perceptions of the Challenges and Opportunities, Babel. In 2009, the then State Minister for Education in New South Wales, Verity Firth, announced a plan to introduce bilingual education in four primary schools across the state for the National Asian Languages and Studies in School Program (NALSSP) priority languages: Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean. This paper reports on one aspect of a larger project undertaken by the researchers to examine how the schools, teachers, parents and children in the four schools experienced the implementation of this program and how they viewed the success or otherwise of the program at the end of the first two years of policy implementation. This paper focuses on reporting the perceptions of teachers (the bilingual teachers themselves, the support (classroom and assistant) teachers and senior executive teachers at each school) in relation to the implementation of this innovative and challenging model of languages education in the Australian context. The findings indicate that implementation of such programs is challenging, and that to succeed teachers need support to collaboratively plan, to develop their understandings of bilingual styles of teaching, and that a whole school approach to such a program facilitates smoother implementation. [More] Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Course Content, Program Implementation
(2014). L2 Learning Opportunities in Different Academic Subjects in Content-Based Instruction — Evidence in Favour of "Conventional Wisdom", Language and Education. Content-based instruction (CBI) adopts a second language (L2) as the medium of instruction for some or all academic subjects to facilitate L2 learning. There seem however, no uniform policies concerning which academic subjects should be taught in L2, in case only some subjects are involved. Conventional wisdom tends to favour Humanities subjects since they are more verbal and hence more conducive to L2 learning. However, there has been no empirical evidence supporting such claim so far. This study attempts to address such a gap by comparing students' language learning opportunities in different academic subjects. Twenty-two lessons across grades and subjects were observed in two English-medium secondary schools in Hong Kong (where CBI was practised). By estimating the proportion of student talk, mean length of student turns, Initiation-Response-Feedback (I-R-F) sequences and form-focused exchanges, the language learning opportunities in Humanities and Science lessons were compared. It was found that in Humanities lessons, students talked significantly more and longer. There were also longer chains of I-R-F sequences where teachers elicited more student responses and provided feedback on students' L2 output. Such differences have significant implications for L2 learning and bilingual education programmes. [More] Descriptors: Second Language Instruction, Second Language Learning, Foreign Countries, Teaching Methods
(2014). (Re)Categorizing Language-Minority Literacies in Restrictive Educational Contexts, International Multilingual Research Journal. In this discussion, I explore the unfolding effects of Arizona's anti-bilingual education law (Proposition 203) on schools with predominant language-minority student populations. Instead of facilitating academic progress, policies like Proposition 203 impede teachers from "scaffolding" (Long & Adamson, 2012, p. 39) their students' native-language abilities in the process of developing academic literacy proficiencies in English–ultimately resulting in significant academic challenges for language-minority students. Based on this premise, I describe the everyday literacy practices of immigrant and language-minority students as a way to demonstrate that the students' academic difficulties do not represent their true competencies. My aim is to emphasize the breadth of student literacy practices that occur both at school and in the community in hopes of initiating a dialogue on how to expand on these practices to enhance classroom instruction. To do this, I propose a model for efficiently identifying literacy practices as a way to help educators bridge their students' everyday experiences to school contexts. [More] Descriptors: Language Minorities, State Legislation, Minority Group Students, Bilingual Education
(2014). What Is the Optimal Length of an ELL Program?, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. This study focuses on assessing the contribution of ELL services to Spanish-speaking students' mathematics learning in elementary schools. ELL students tend to have lower average math achievement at school entry and throughout elementary school. The term "ELL services" encompasses English-as-a-second-language (ESL) programs, bilingual education programs, and other types of specialized programs for ELL students. Such students are entitled to support in the classroom until they achieve the level of English proficiency needed for full participation. Data were collected using outcome measures from math direct assessment scores. The assessment was administered in English if a student was proficient in English and was administered in Spanish if the student was proficient in Spanish but not in English. Study results indicate four or more years of ELL services on average are necessary to enable Spanish-speaking elementary students to become proficient in academic English essential for math learning. Yet a one-size-for-all recipe is practically naÃØve and often wasteful. Identifying the optimal length of ELL services for subpopulations of students therefore has immediate implications for ELL resource allocation. Tables and figures are appended. [More] Descriptors: Program Length, English Language Learners, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning
(2014). Fine-Tuning Language Policy in Hong Kong Education: Stakeholders' Perceptions, Practices and Challenges, Language and Education. The present study evaluates the impact of the fine-tuning medium of instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong in the early stages of its implementation. It explores the key stakeholders' perspectives on a school-based policy via a case study, which gathered multiple sources of qualitative data (i.e. focus groups/interviews, open-ended questionnaires, school documents and lesson observations). The findings reveal that the increased amount of English-medium teaching encouraged by the new policy has led to the emergence of numerous controversial pedagogical and practical issues, many of which resemble those also occurring in bilingual education programmes worldwide. The evidence suggests that the school-based MOI policy and practices have only benefited the more capable students but sacrificed the interests and learning needs of less able students. The paper, therefore, highlights the need to inform local teachers and administrators on how to confront these difficulties based on their own experience so as to maximise the effectiveness and learning outcomes of the majority of the students. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Language of Instruction, Second Language Learning, Educational Policy
(2016). Language "Skills" and the Neoliberal English Education Industry, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Neoliberal transformation of self, learning, and teaching constructs individuals as bundles of skills (or human capital) and subordinates learning to skill production characterized by an ethic of entrepreneurial self-management [Urciuoli, Bonnie. 2010. "Neoliberal Education: Preparing the Student for the New Workplace." In "Ethnographies of Neoliberalism," edited by Carol Greenhouse, 162-176. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press]. As such, language in the neoliberal discourse is constructed as a set of flexible skills, acquired by the entrepreneurial self in the market [Park, Joseph Sung-Yul. 2010. "Naturalization of Competence and the Neoliberal Subject: Success Stories of English Language Learning in the Korean Conservative Press." "Journal of Linguistic Anthropology" 20 (1): 22-38; "The Promise of English: Linguistic Capital and the Neoliberal Worker in the South Korean Job Market." "International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism" 14 (4): 443-455]. This paper examines ways in which English language education is restructured to fit such neoliberal imaginary through the case of the South Korean "jogi yuhak" (pre-college-aged study abroad) industry. The analyses highlight ways in which the language learning industry not only interplays with but also actively shapes the ideologies of neoliberalism, by developing and selling packaged products that make the projects of self-management seem more achievable and desirable. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of the Korean case for the study of language and social inequality in education. [More] Descriptors: Language Skills, Neoliberalism, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning
(2014). On Not Taking Language Inequality for Granted: Hymesian Traces in Ethnographic Monitoring of South Africa's Multilingual Language Policy, Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. South African higher education is at a critical juncture in the implementation of South Africa's multilingual language policy promoting institutional status for nine African languages, English, and Afrikaans. South African scholars, not content merely to comment from the sidelines on the policy, its promise, and challenges, have also engaged in implementation efforts. This article explores two such initiatives, both focusing on the use of African languages in higher education institutions where English is already established as the medium of instruction, and both undertaken with explicit goals of righting South Africa's longstanding social injustices. I collaborated with colleagues at the University of Limpopo and the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assess current implementation and identify next steps and strategies for achieving truly multilingual teaching, learning, and research at their institutions. Taking up Hymes' (1980) call for ethnographic monitoring of bilingual education, I sought in each case to jointly describe and analyze current communicative conduct, uncover emergent patterns and meanings in program implementation, and evaluate program and policy in terms of social meanings. I argue that ethnographic monitoring in education offers one means toward "not" taking language inequality for granted. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Higher Education, Multilingualism, Language Planning
(2014). The Court versus Consent Decrees? Schools, "Horne v. Flores" and Judicial Strategies of Institutional Reform Litigation, Education and Urban Society. Is the U.S. Supreme Court inviting litigants to take aim at unraveling injunctions in institutional reform litigation–especially consent decrees in the schools? In "Horne v. Flores" (2009), the court remanded a 17-year-old school reform case to a federal judge with orders to look beyond consent decrees on financing, reducing class sizes, and moving from bilingual education to structured English immersion–to look anew at whether the schools in Nogales, Arizona, provide equal opportunity. Those concerned with schools worry that the court has signaled the end of institutional reform litigation in the schools. However, we closely analyze these dense opinions and data tables to posit the court's preference for a catalytic judicial strategy that may work best with institutional reform litigation. We place this analysis within a larger context of empirical studies of institutional reform litigation judicial strategies, including judicial roles of deferrer, director, broker, and catalyst. We also argue that these preferences demonstrate the court's awareness of a sociolegal empirical literature on what works in institutional reform litigation–rather than the end of consent decrees in the schools. [More] Descriptors: Court Litigation, Educational Change, Immersion Programs, Bilingual Education
(2016). Examining the English Language Policy for Ethnic Minority Students in a Chinese University: A Language Ideology and Language Regime Perspective, Current Issues in Language Planning. We focus on the learning of English in a Chinese university in Jiangsu and the university's preferential language policy, which allowed Uyghur minority students from Xinjiang to be enrolled despite their lower scores in the entrance examination. Guided by the constructs of language ideologies [Kroskrity, P. V. (2000). "Regimes of language: Ideologies, politics, identities." Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press] and language regimes [Sonntag, S. K., & Cardinal, L. (2015). Introduction. In L. Cardinal & S. K. Sonntag (Eds.), "State traditions and language regimes" (pp. 3-26). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press], we adopted an ethnographic approach [McCarty, T. L. (2015). Ethnography in language planning and policy research. In F. M. Hult & D. C. Johnson (Eds.), "Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide" (pp. 81-93). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell] to investigate how Uyghur students viewed their English learning and how the university responded to macro-level national language planning decisions to foster social harmony. Our findings revealed that the minority students were marginalized in their study of English and disadvantaged compared to Han students. Consequently, we argue for a consideration of the impact of power inequalities in relation to English language learning. Such a critical perspective entails (1) acknowledging the disadvantaged position from which these minority students began their formal education because English was a third language for them [Yang, J. (2005). "English as a third language among China's ethnic minorities." "International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism," 8(6), 552-567] and (2) recognizing that access to English education is not equitable because students who attend schools in economically developed provinces such as Jiangsu are more likely to get a better education in English than those from a less developed province such as Xinjiang. [More] Descriptors: Ethnic Groups, Minority Group Students, English (Second Language), Educational Policy
(2014). The Indicating Factors of Oral Reading Fluency of Monolingual and Bilingual Children in Egypt, International Education Studies. This study examined oral reading fluency (ORF) of bilingual and monolingual students. The author selected a sample of 510 (258 males and 252 females) native Arabic-speaking sixth-graders (62 bilinguals and 448 monolinguals) in Egypt. The purposes were; (a) to examine oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, prosody, and oral reading comprehension as indicating factors in ORF, and b) to investigate the impact of bilingual education on students' ORF in Arabic. Participants individually completed the author-developed Oral Reading Fluency Measure. Results indicated a very good fit between the proposed model and the observed data i.e., oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, prosody, and oral reading comprehension are significant indicators of ORF. Interestingly, results revealed that the bilingual students performed better than their monolingual counterparts on oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, and prosody but not on oral reading comprehension. The discussion concludes that (a) in addition to oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, and prosody, oral reading comprehension is a significant indicating factor of ORF, (b) learning a second language, English, has a positive effect on ORF in the first language, Arabic, and (c) the nature of Arabic orthography is an indispensible factor when examining ORF in science of reading. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Oral Reading, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension
(2014). Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) Framework Manual 2013-2014. Commissioner's Rules Concerning the State Plan for Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) states that all school districts that are required to provide bilingual education and/or English as a second language (ESL) programs establish and operate a Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC). The LPACs are charged with reviewing all pertinent information on all identified English language learners upon their initial enrollment and at the end of each school year. Districts are required to have on file policy and procedures for the selection, appointment, and training of members of the LPACs. This manual includes clarification of the legal requirements for LPACs, and provides documents and forms to facilitate the training of LPAC members. The forms included with the manual are for use by districts and are not required forms for the implementation of a Bilingual/ESL program. This manual integrates state and federal Title III of Public Law 107-110 (No Child Left Behind) requirements regarding the identification, program placement, parent notification, annual review, and assessment of English language learners as they attain language and academic proficiency. Three major topics are covered in this manual: (1) LPAC Membership and Training; (2) LPAC Responsibilities; and (3) Coordination with Other Programs. [More] Descriptors: Language Proficiency, Guidelines, Bilingual Education Programs, English (Second Language)
(2014). Learning and Retaining Specialized Vocabulary from Textbook Reading: Comparison of Learning Outcomes through L1 and L2, Modern Language Journal. This study investigated the acquisition of specialized vocabulary from L1 and L2 textbook reading by 64 Slovak high school students who were intermediate or advanced users of English. The students were divided into two groups: One group read the academic texts in their L1, the other group in their L2. In a posttest and a delayed posttest, they were asked to orally recall the meanings of 12 technical words that appeared in the texts. The word meanings recalled by the students immediately after reading and 1 week later were examined in terms of their breadth and depth. Results showed that although the L2-instructed students acquired the meanings of the specialized vocabulary items to a considerable degree, they still differed significantly from their L1-instructed counterparts in several respects: They could recall fewer word meanings after the reading; they acquired the words to a lesser depth; and after a week, their knowledge of the words faded more rapidly than that of the L1-instructed participants. The significance of the findings for L2 vocabulary acquisition and bilingual education is discussed. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, High School Students, English (Second Language), Vocabulary Development
(2014). Critical Discourse Analysis in Literacy Education: A Review of the Literature, Reading Research Quarterly. This article is a critical, integrative literature review of scholarship in literacy studies from 2004 to 2012 that draws on critical discourse analysis (CDA). We discuss key issues, trends, and criticisms in the field. Our methodology was carried out in three stages. First, we searched educational databases to locate literacy-focused CDA scholarship. Second, we completed an analytic review template for each article and encoded this data into a digital spreadsheet to assess macrotrends in the field. Third, we developed schemata to interpret the complexity of issues related to research design. Our examination of 76 literacy-focused empirical studies and theoretical papers in scholarly journals reveals trends in the questions that researchers find interesting enough to pursue, the theories they find useful, and the kinds of interactions that capture their attention. Our findings demonstrate that CDA scholarship has been conducted in many areas of literacy studies, including policy, academic writing, the preparation of literacy teachers, professional development, textbook content, curricular design, assessment, and bilingual education. We explore four foundational areas in the field that are especially ripe for debate and critique: context, reflexivity, social action, and deconstructive-reconstructive stance toward inquiry. In the discussion, we compare the findings of this literature review with an earlier review published in 2005, reflecting on three decades of CDA in literacy studies. We identify directions for future scholarship. [More] Descriptors: Discourse Analysis, Literature Reviews, Trend Analysis, Literacy
(2003). The Near End of Bilingual Education, Education Next. Discusses the effect of California's Proposition 227, passed in June 1998, requiring all children to be taught English in English. Reports that enrollment in bilingual education in elementary and secondary schools declined significantly between 1997-98 and 2001-2002, while the academic achievement of English Learners not enrolled in bilingual education improved during the same period. (Contains 2 figures.) Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Bilingual Education, Elementary School Students, Enrollment
(2014). Language Dispute and Social Change in New Multilingual Institutions in Chaco, Argentina, International Journal of Multilingualism. Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) programmes in Latin America pose interesting questions for sociolinguistics, since their implementation interrogates the link between language and the nation resulting from the emergence of nation-states, but also from processes of decolonization. In the case of Argentina, a new legal framework and the recent implementation of new public policies at national and provincial levels have caused key social and linguistic transformations in educational institutions in indigenous contexts. This paper aims to show some current transformations in multilingual management in Chaco's educational institutions. To do this, I consider the case of public schools, traditionally monolingual in Spanish, to which new actors are incorporated, i.e. Wichi bilingual teachers. Their presence at school and their linguistic practices illustrate the tensions between different language ideologies that coexist today in the Argentinean educational system. As I try to show, bilingualism–as an ideological sign and as symbolic capital–and bilingual practices constitute a contested terrain that can be explored through a sociolinguistic ethnography. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education Programs, Correlation, Language Attitudes, Guidelines