This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Anita Y. K. Poon, Stephen Krashen, Fang Gao, Tan Yao Sua, Peter Sayer, Yehudit Shaul, Nadine Normand-Marconnet, Shannon Krista Houvouras, Mila Schwartz, and Lee Kar Ling.
(2000). Bilingual Education: Current Challenges, Educators for Urban Minorities. Examines current controversies and challenges in bilingual education, reviewing the case for bilingual education and the research supporting it. Makes suggestions for improving bilingual education, which include enriching the print environment and using heritage language development. Discusses research findings on challenges to bilingual education, then offers examples of bilingual programs that work. Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Bilingual Students, Elementary Secondary Education, English (Second Language)
(2001). The Effects of Demographic Variables, Ethnic Prejudice, and Attitudes toward Immigration on Opposition to Bilingual Education, Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. Analysis of data from the 1994 General Social Survey found that about two-thirds of respondents supported bilingual education. Opposition to bilingual education was greater among older, male, White, and college-educated respondents and among those having certain attitudes toward Latinos, immigration, and assimilationist ideology. Possible reasons why college graduates would oppose bilingual education are discussed. (Contains 24 references.) Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Educational Attainment, Educational Attitudes, Ethnic Bias
(2013). How Fifth Grade Latino/a Bilingual Students Use Their Linguistic Resources in the Classroom and Laboratory during Science Instruction, Cultural Studies of Science Education. This qualitative, sociolinguistic research study examines how bilingual Latino/a students use their linguistic resources in the classroom and laboratory during science instruction. This study was conducted in a school in the southwestern United States serving an economically depressed, predominantly Latino population. The object of study was a fifth grade science class entirely comprised of language minority students transitioning out of bilingual education. Therefore, English was the means of instruction in science, supported by informal peer-to-peer Spanish-language communication. This study is grounded in a social constructivist paradigm. From this standpoint, learning science is a social process where social, cultural, and linguistic factors are all considered crucial to the process of acquiring scientific knowledge. The study was descriptive in nature, examining specific linguistic behaviors with the purpose of identifying and analyzing the linguistic functions of students' utterances while participating in science learning. The results suggest that students purposefully adapt their use of linguistic resources in order to facilitate their participation in science leaning. What is underscored in this study is the importance of explicitly acknowledging, supporting, and incorporating bilingual students' linguistic resources both in Spanish and English into the science classroom in order to optimize students' participation and facilitate their understanding. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Students, Hispanic American Students, Science Instruction, Disadvantaged Youth
(2012). Imagined Identity of Ethnic Koreans and Its Implication for Bilingual Education in China, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Imagined identity is the way of positioning individuals or being positioned by others in an imagined world, where individuals' cultural identifications interplay with cultural and language practices. This lays the basis for the current research on the construction of imagined memberships by two young ethnic Korean students in China. An analysis of the students' life histories indicates that the negotiation of imagined identities takes place in-between the polarized positions of assimilation and separation, as coined by Berry in the multidimensional categories of acculturation. The process of identity construction suggests that Chinese is an important type of linguistic capital, which to a considerable extent determines an individual's desired membership in the mainstream society, whereas a certain degree of preservation in the Korean language complicates the process of acculturation, through which both Chinese and Korean languages are integratively and instrumentally functional in market-oriented Chinese economy and may open up alternative imagined communities where ethnic Koreans become bilingual users. This research reflects the integrative acculturation, which is illustrative of a selective process and puts forward explicit assumptions about an additive bilingual education in China. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Acculturation, Foreign Countries, Korean
(2011). Ghosts of No Child Left Behind. Counterpoints: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education. Volume 361, Peter Lang New York. "Ghosts of No Child Left Behind" politically situates curriculum within a historically and critically informed context, to understand the structural forces that have contributed to the creation of a population of adolescents who read below a third grade level. The book then proposes a reconceptualization of literacy curriculum within a critical discourse to facilitate self-actualizing pedagogy for non-reading adolescents–some of whom are incarcerated. Rooted in a complex understanding of teaching, learning, and knowledge, this book presents information to policymakers, administrators, and educators that is vital to improving literacy instruction, curriculum, and policy. The information presented here can also inform the general public, especially parents, so that they may advocate for an educational infrastructure that promotes empowering literacy development for every student, including non-reading adolescents and younger struggling readers. This book is an unparalleled resource for teacher education courses focusing on literacy, critical pedagogy, policy, bilingual education, special education, and issues in urban education. [More] Descriptors: Critical Theory, Federal Legislation, Adolescents, Literacy
(2013). Motivation, Gender, and Learner Performance of English as an L3 in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, English Language Teaching. Gender is considered as one of the important variables that effects learner motivation in second or foreign language acquisition. It is also believed that learner motivation has an impact on learner performance as well. Using the expectancy-value theory model of achievement motivation, this study aimed at exploring (1) the impact of gender differences on motivation and (2) motivational variables that predict learner performance in the context of English as an L3. The participants in this study were ethnic minority students (mainly Uygur) of a university in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Results of both quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that female students held greater attainment and intrinsic values than male students; the study results also revealed that expectancy and cost are motivational variables that better predict the minority students' EFL performance in the context of English as an L3. These findings support the notion that females are more interested in the target culture and interaction with its speakers than males in EFL learning. On the basis of these results, the author discusses possible factors that influence ethnic minority learners' motivation in learning English as an L3 and provides suggestions on how to motivate male students and help them to improve performance in the process of English teaching in the context of bilingual education in Xinjiang. [More] Descriptors: Learning Motivation, Gender Differences, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning
(2010). English and Spanish "Para Un Futuro"–Or Just English? Immigrant Family Perspectives on Two-Way Immersion, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. This article considers immigrants' perspectives on language immersion education. Data are drawn from a longitudinal research project that examined one suburban school district's construction of a two-way immersion (TWI), bilingual education policy. Analyses focus on 18 months of participant observation with six Mexican immigrant families who had at least one child in TWI. Framed by the language policy and planning literature as well as the study of childhoods, the findings foreground both parents' and children's understandings of their district's new policy. Parents' hopes for TWI to develop students' bilingualism matched the policy's stated intentions, but children also foregrounded the public debate's focus on developing students' English skills. The discussion considers what these contrasting perspectives mean for the political implementation of bilingual, TWI policies. [More] Descriptors: Suburban Schools, Language Planning, Immersion Programs, Participant Observation
(2013). Will the New Fine-Tuning Medium-of-Instruction Policy Alleviate the Threats of Dominance of English-Medium Instruction in Hong Kong?, Current Issues in Language Planning. Medium of instruction (MOI) is a highly controversial and thorny educational issue in Hong Kong. Despite the Hong Kong government's strenuous efforts to promote Chinese-medium instruction since 1984, social and community pressure for English-medium instruction (EMI) has been immense and continues to increase. However, the dominance of English as MOI has raised various educational, linguistic, and socioeconomic issues such as rote learning, motivation, declining language standards, and restricted social mobility. Against this background, this article examines the potential of the recently introduced fine-tuning of MOI policy in addressing such concerns and ensuring the benefits of EMI. The article draws on language-planning theories and various concepts of bilingual education for framing the argument and relies on government statistics, empirical studies, and newspaper and magazine articles as sources of data. It is concluded that a policy approach is not sufficient to treat language problems, and that MOI should be planned holistically together with language teaching in the entire school curriculum. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Foreign Countries, Language of Instruction, Rote Learning
(2013). Translanguaging, TexMex, and Bilingual Pedagogy: Emergent Bilinguals Learning through the Vernacular, TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect. This article presents an ethnographic study of how bilingual teachers and children use their home language, TexMex, to mediate academic content and standard languages. From the premise that TESOL educators can benefit from a fuller understanding of students' linguistic repertoires, the study describes language practices in a second-grade classroom in a transitional bilingual education program in a well-established Mexican American community in San Antonio, Texas. The data suggest that the participants move fluidly between not just Spanish and English, but also the standard and vernacular varieties, a movement that is called "translanguaging" (O. Garcia, 2009). Translanguaging through TexMex enables the teacher and students to create discursive spaces that allow them to engage with the social meanings in school from their position as bilingual Latinos. The teacher's adoption of a flexible bilingual pedagogy (Creese & Blackledge, 2010) allows for translanguaging in the classroom not only as a way of making sense of content and learning language, but also as a legitimized means of performing desired identities. [More] Descriptors: Ethnography, Bilingual Teachers, Bilingual Students, Bilingual Education
(2013). Bi-Lingual Teaching and Learning: Effectiveness and Challenges in Postgraduate Studies, Higher Learning Research Communications. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the use of bilingual teaching and learning methodology for Vietnamese postgraduate students from 2011-2012. Overall, the findings indicated relatively positive outcomes in most of the spectrum evaluated or assessed. These findings were then compared with previous researches and to ascertain the applicability to fundamental theories underpinning bilingual education to determine the correlation between theory and practice. This research provided an in-depth contextual based research that contributed to an extensive understanding of the effectiveness of the adoption of bilingual teaching and learning at postgraduate level within ASEAN countries. The research will also provide a platform for development nations to gain accesses to the required knowledge, skills, capabilities, and competencies that have thus far eluded them due to language barrier, thereby providing these nations with the impetus to grow and develop further as a nation via the effective development of the country's human capital. [This paper was presented at the International Conference on Teaching and Learning (ICTL) (4th, Bangkok, Thailand, Nov 13-15, 2013).] [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Teaching Methods, Outcomes of Education, Correlation
(2013). Narrative Development among Language-Minority Children: The Role of Bilingual versus Monolingual Preschool Education, Language, Culture and Curriculum. The development of script schema, as a source of narrative knowledge, is an essential stage in this knowledge construction. This study focused on the role of bilingual versus monolingual preschool education in the development of script schema knowledge in Russian (L1) and Hebrew (L2) among Russian/Hebrew-speaking children in Israel. The preschool bilingual education was based on the "first language first approach" with L2 immersion around age three. The study design was longitudinal and comparative. The children's script schema knowledge was measured at three time points during one academic year. Thirty-two Russian/Hebrew-speaking bilinguals (around age three) were selected from bilingual (Russian/Hebrew) and monolingual (Hebrew) preschools. In addition, 19 Hebrew-speaking monolinguals acted as the control group. The results demonstrated that relatively late immersion in L2 and continuous development of L1 within a bilingual educational context does not impede the acquisition of script schema knowledge in L2. At the same time, in the case of the monolingual preschools, the lack of input in children's L1 within the educational curriculum seems to hinder their script schema development in this language. Finally, the research provides evidence of linguistic interdependence near to onset of script schema acquisition. [More] Descriptors: Minority Group Children, Preschool Education, Bilingual Education, Semitic Languages
(2013). French Bilingual Classes in Vietnam: Issues and Debates about an Innovative Language Curriculum, Language and Education. Despite a long historical French presence in Vietnam, only 0.5% of Vietnamese people speak French today. As in other countries of South East Asia, language instruction in Vietnam has mainly focused on English for several decades. This paper provides an overview of a project called "French bilingual classes". The main aim of the study is to analyze the benefits and the challenges identified by local teachers and researchers who have been involved in this program. The data are extracted from a corpus of 62 out of 468 papers written in French and presented during the annual Seminar on Action Research organized from 1999 to 2009 in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The analysis of this discursive resource illustrates an overall acknowledgment of the positive outcomes of the program. However, in concordance with studies of English language teaching in Vietnam, the pitfalls identified in our corpus indicate that the major challenge is the implementation of a learner-centered and an action-oriented pedagogy in an educational context generally qualified as traditional. By providing new insights on bilingual education in Vietnam, our study will contribute to the current debate regarding the sustainability of innovative language curricula and multilingual education in the Asian context. [More] Descriptors: French, Bilingual Education, Foreign Countries, Second Language Learning
(2013). Teacher Language Awareness in a Swedish Bilingual School for the Deaf: Two Portraits of Grammar Knowledge in Practice, ProQuest LLC. This case study explores the relationship between teachers' language knowledge and their grammar teaching practices within the context of a bilingual school for the deaf in Sweden, a country that has demonstrated success in educating deaf children bilingually in written Swedish and Sweden's signed language. The study's participants were two Swedish language teachers and their 17 elementary school students; both participants were identified as high quality teachers and models of the school's approach to the bilingual education of deaf children. Teacher Language Awareness was selected as the theoretical construct through which to explore the relationship between teacher knowledge and practice because of its focus on knowledge-in-action, or the sites where knowledge intersects with practice. The study's main data sources were classroom observation and stimulated recall interviews. Data were analyzed sequentially using a start list of codes derived from a review of the relevant literature. Two portraits of the teachers' grammatical Teacher Language Awareness emerged from my analysis of the data. Suggested pedagogical applications for these portraits in teacher education programs are presented. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta… [More] Descriptors: Metalinguistics, Correlation, Interviews, Recall (Psychology)
(2013). Decolonization, Educational Language Policy and Nation Building in Plural Societies: The Development of Chinese Education in Malaysia, 1950-1970, International Journal of Educational Development. The two decades from 1950 to 1970 were a crucial period of educational reorganization in Malaysia that stemmed from the decolonization after the Second World War. This educational reorganization sought to address the perennial issue of nation building via educational language policy. The development of Chinese education was under severe threat as the British colonial government opted for a national school system that used English and Malay as the media of instruction in place of the segregated vernacular school system that had existed during the colonial period. Much to the relief of the Chinese, the national school system failed to materialize due to the lack of financial resources to reorganize the entire educational system. But the Chinese were unable to maintain the Chinese school system within the ambit of the national educational system advocated by the postcolonial Alliance government. The Alliance government had only allowed the Chinese to undergo Chinese education at the primary level. At the secondary level, it opted for a monolingual system of education based on Malay as the main medium of instruction in order to foster national integration through a common language. The Chinese had to switch to this medium of instruction if they wanted to remain in mainstream education. Such a system of transitional bilingual education was aimed at incorporating the Chinese into the nation building process. [More] Descriptors: Language Planning, International Schools, Bilingual Education, War
(2014). Pedagogical Mentorship, Indigenous Settings, and Rural Education: Perspectives from Guatemalan Teachers, ProQuest LLC. Rural and Indigenous populations have the lowest educational achievement indicators and teachers with the least years of training. Global education movements have led to an increase in access to schooling by rural and Indigenous populations but high drop-out rates persist and education policies, curricular contents, and teacher trainings have progressively become urban-biased and insensitive to context (Barter, 2008). Using Guatemala as my research site, this study offers to improve our understandings of the challenges faced by teachers to provide quality education in rural and Indigenous settings. It also analyzes the potential of pedagogical mentorship as an in-service teacher training resource that considers contextual realities and advances the fulfillment of the right to culturally and linguistically relevant education. This qualitative and multisite research study draws on critical and post foundational epistemologies and on extensive qualitative data collected over a six month period through in-depth interviews, participant observation and document analysis. Results demonstrate that the main challenges faced by rural teachers include economic hardships, malnutrition, inadequate and superficial teacher training in intercultural bilingual education and the persistent absence of basic government social programs. The data also reveal a positive acceptance and demand for pedagogical mentorship on behalf of all the interviewed teachers; particularly to enhance their knowledge and skills on bilingual intercultural education. Teachers agree on mentorship's potential to bring more culturally and linguistically relevant education, yet they also emphasize concerns for these programs' politicization. Patronage politics are feared to lead to forgo intended mentorship goals and to the hiring of unqualified mentors. Pedagogical mentorship offers a powerful opportunity for the Guatemalan government to enhance quality and context sensitive education but is not enough. Educational authorities need to move beyond the superficial inclusion of Indigenous languages, cultures and knowledges in curricular contents and teacher education and dismantle the apartheid of knowledge (Delgado Bernal & Villalpando, 2002), language and socioeconomic opportunities. Multi sectorial efforts are necessary to tackle poverty, hunger and education and move towards the implementation of the long overdue right for rural and Indigenous peoples to access quality education which includes healthy students and linguistically and culturally relevant curricula. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta… [More] Descriptors: Indigenous Populations, Interviews, Participant Observation, Documentation