This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Judy T. Salamon, Gunther Dietz, Ysaaca Axelrod, Eva Ma. Gonzalez Barea, Esther Marquez Lepe, Alderik Visser, Jessica Wiltshire, Jason Downer, Francisca Ruiz Garzon, and Tim Marr.
(2014). Biliteracy Summer Schools: Breaking the Cycle of Monolingualism in Migrant Families, Childhood Education. Immigration and the role of language in education have been major issues in governance and education across the world. The current study looks at a family biliteracy program for 2- to 6-year-old students and their parents. The findings shed light on the importance of teacher-community partnerships in bridging the linguistic gap between Spanish-speaking migrant parents and their children who are entering an English-only educational system. Such partnerships create opportunities for teachers to reflect on and re-evaluate their teaching practices, for parents to value literacy in the home language as well as the school language, and for students to value biliteracy as a relevant skill. Biliteracy practices, highlighted in the study, have implications for immigrant families in creating linguistic equity in education. [More] Descriptors: Spanish Speaking, English (Second Language), Bilingual Students, Family Literacy
(2014). Two Languages Are Better than One, Phi Delta Kappan. A program of helping students learn French by integrating students' native tongue into their school instruction, along with French–the country's national language–promises to improve education outcomes in one of the world's poorest nations. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Learning Motivation, Educational Methods, Sex Fairness
(2014). "¬øTu te Acuerdas de Ganchulinas?": Longitudinal Research with Young Emergent Bilinguals, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. Drawing on the work of Celia Genishi, this article discusses data from an ethnographic case study of young Latina/o children, starting in their four-year-olds classroom in a Head Start Program through their first grade year in a dual-language program in a public school. The children attended a bilingual Head Start program that followed a play-based curriculum and focused on the socio-emotional development of the children. The flexibility of the curriculum in this setting allowed time and space for the children to play and develop at their own pace, positioning them as knowers and learners. The children then moved into a public school setting with a narrow "literacy focused" curriculum, with strict boundaries established between languages and a narrower definition of what "counts" as literacy. In spite of this, these children continued to draw on their linguistic resources, making space for play and developing their identities as multilingual children in ways that are often not captured by the curriculum, but are visible to those who seek to listen to the children and see their strengths and growth over time. [More] Descriptors: Bilingualism, Bilingual Schools, Bilingual Education, Preschool Children
(2010). Transmigrant Families: Intercultural and Bilingual Competences Development, Globalisation, Societies and Education. This article presents the results of a research project concerned with analysing and identifying the discourses and related strategies used by Spanish-German trans-migrant families to support and develop bilingual and intercultural competences stemming from their transmigratory experiences. Using the biographical-narrative approach, we reconstruct the families' migratory phases, emphasising shifting parental discourses on bilingual practices and intercultural competences in the home. After presenting the analysed empirical data, the results obtained are grouped into four broader intrepretative frameworks: bilingual practice, life-world intercultural theories, social networks and "cosmopolitanism". [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Social Networks, Migrants, Bilingualism
(2012). Current Issues in Teaching Bilingual Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Journal of the American Academy of Special Education Professionals. This paper presents a narrative review of the literature at the intersection of bilingualism and practices for teaching children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We highlight the gap in the empirical literature about instructional practices for young bilinguals with ASD. Special attention is given to the monolingual ASD and multicultural special education literatures for shared evidence on designing interventions for bilingual children with ASD. Implications are discussed for special educators who may not speak one or more of the world languages of the child. [More] Descriptors: Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Autism, Bilingual Education, Teaching Methods
(2010). International Education in a National Context: Introducing the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme in Dutch Public Schools, Journal of Research in International Education. Some bilingual secondary schools in the Netherlands have introduced or are introducing the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP).The implementation of this international scheme at (semi-) public national Dutch schools proves anything but unproblematic. Based on a series of questionnaires filled out by school managers and MYP coordinators at other national schools offering IB programmes worldwide, the author has tried to gain insight into some of the conditions under which international education could become a success in (Dutch) national schools. [More] Descriptors: International Schools, International Education, Advanced Placement Programs, Foreign Countries
(2010). French and English Together: An "Additive" Experience, Babel. This paper examines the nature of the "additive" experience of a bilingual French-English curriculum at Killarney Heights Public School in New South Wales. Predictably, the well-supported "additive" nature of the languages program model elicited positive reactions regarding educational success. The paper also explores issues for administration, implementation, and teacher professionalism in regard to such a curriculum offering. [More] Descriptors: English, Foreign Countries, French, Bilingualism
(1999). Neither the State nor the Grass Roots: Language Maintenance and the Discourse of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Describes the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, a Peruvian institution ostensibly dedicated to maintaining Quechua. Data from writings by and about the Academia and from administrator interviews suggest that the institution shows signs of an ambivalent and potentially conflictive attitude toward the Peruvian state and Quechua speakers, and this could potentially produce negative effects on Peru's Quechua language maintenance. Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Bilingualism, Foreign Countries, Government Role
(2014). Technology-Based Biliteracy Centers for the 21st Century Learner, GIST Education and Learning Research Journal. The purpose of this reflective article is to present an alternative that incorporates the four language skills in all content areas through technology-based dual-language centers for emergent bilinguals at the elementary level. The authors propose a matrix to plan the centers and include three examples to facilitate language transfer in English and Spanish to foster biliteracy. The planning of the three projects is discussed as well as results from their implementation with elementary grade learners. [More] Descriptors: Educational Technology, Content Area Reading, Content Area Writing, Language Skills
(2014). Long Term English Language Learners: Failure Is Not an Option, Online Submission. There is a sizable number of English Language Learners (ELL) that are not succeeding in schools and are academically "falling through the cracks." The purpose of this thesis is to gather information that identifies reasons why students are not succeeding academically and which strategies individual teachers can implement to help these students attain academic success. The literature reveals that Long Term English Language Learners have lower levels of literacy and tend to drop out more frequently compared to native English speakers. This is a qualitative study using a focus group at a middle school. Data were collected from individuals in a focus group. This study found six key strategies that could be used by teachers teaching English Language Learners to improve their students' proficiency in English. Implications for future research include continuing to explore effective ways to support ELL students in becoming proficient in English in the elementary grades. [More] Descriptors: English Language Learners, Academic Achievement, Teaching Methods, Middle School Teachers
(2010). The Power of Learning from Inquiry: Teacher Research as a Professional Development Tool in Multilingual Schools. Adult Education Special Topics: Theory, Research and Practice in LifeLong Learning, IAP – Information Age Publishing, Inc.. The power of teacher inquiry is revealed when educators examine their practices with the purpose of making necessary changes to improve the learning opportunities of their multilingual students, and working conditions in schools. Dr. Nevarez-La Torre, proposes a model for conducting classroom inquiry that teachers may follow to pursue important questions about their practice and multilingual students' learning process. There are eight chapters in this book divided into three sections. The first section introduces the idea for the book a model for using teacher inquiry as a tool for professional development. The second section includes the analyses of the trajectory followed by three teachers into using teacher inquiry to grow as professionals in ESL and bilingual classrooms. The third section of the book situates professional development using teacher inquiry within a broader theoretical framework and examines some key implications of this work for the education of in-service and pre-service teachers. [More] Descriptors: Teacher Researchers, Faculty Development, Inquiry, Multilingualism
(2014). "¬°Fantástico!": Valuing Student Knowledge through the Morning Message, Reading Teacher. Drawing from a qualitative case study that examined the language practices and learning in a first grade bilingual classroom, the author discusses one teacher's daily process for the literacy event of the morning message. Primary findings indicate that the ways the teacher listened and responded to students during the morning message provided validation regarding their knowledge and role in the classroom. Several forms of validation were identified such as: stating agreement with students' thoughts and opinions, identification of students' intellectual strategies, and recognition of their cultural and linguistic knowledge. The forms of validation used during morning message supported student learning of academic language across their developing languages of Spanish and English as well as their ability to see themselves as valuable members of the learning community. This study builds on literacy research by exploring how morning message can promote student engagement, literacy development and metalinguistic awareness. [More] Descriptors: Qualitative Research, Case Studies, Language Usage, Grade 1
(2012). Predicting Acceptance of Diversity in Pre-Kindergarten Classrooms, Early Childhood Research Quarterly. This study examined classroom-level contributors to an acceptance of diversity in publicly supported pre-kindergarten classrooms across 11 states. Classroom composition, process quality, and teacher characteristics were examined as predictors of diversity-promoting practices as measured by the ECERS-R, acceptance of diversity construct. Findings reveal that emotional climate, bilingual classrooms, family poverty levels within classrooms, and Latino teacher ethnicity are predictive of diversity-promoting classrooms; while classroom-level ethnic sameness to teacher prohibits diversity-promoting practices in pre-kindergarten classrooms. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Ethnic Diversity, Student Diversity, Cultural Pluralism
(2010). Bilingual Public Schooling in the United States: A History of America's "Polyglot Boardinghouse", Palgrave Macmillan. This history of one of the most contentious educational issues in America examines bilingual instruction in the United States from the common school era to the recent federal involvement in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing from school reports, student narratives, legal resources, policy documents, and other primary sources, the work teases out the underlying agendas and patterns in bilingual schooling during much of America's history. The study demonstrates clearly how the broader context–the cultural, intellectual, religious, demographic, economic, and political forces–shaped the contours of dual-language instruction in America between the 1840s and 1960s. Ramsey's work fills a crucial void in the educational literature and addresses not only historians, linguists, and bilingual scholars, but also policymakers and practitioners in the field. [More] Descriptors: Bilingual Education, Public Education, Educational History, United States History
(2014). Supporting English and Spanish Literacy through a Family Literacy Program, School Community Journal. Family literacy studies have shown that the role of parental storybook reading has an impact on children's success in school-based literacy instruction. However, many children who are English language learners come from homes or cultures where storybook readings are not common practice. The purpose of this qualitative research study explored the effects of an eight-week bilingual family literacy program for Latino, English learning families. Triangulation was assured through multiple sources of data: semistructured interviews conducted with participating parents; parent evaluation surveys; and researcher field notes. During the implementation of the bilingual family literacy program and the analysis of the data, three themes emerged: maintaining the first language, practicing what I have been taught, and the importance of time. Implications for educators are discussed. [More] Descriptors: Family Literacy, Literacy Education, Bilingual Students, Hispanic American Students