Volume 27, Number 3 Fall 2003 ABSTRACTS |
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Breaking the Code: Colorado's Defeat of the Anti-Bilingual Education
Initiative (Amendment 31)
On
November 5, 2002, Colorado voters gave Ron Unz and his anti-bilingual,
English-immersion amendment (Amendment 31) its first defeat. On
the same night, Question 2, a sister initiative in Massachusetts,
passed by a wide margin. What happened in Colorado that enabled
advocates for bilingual education and parent choice to prevail when
those in other states could not? This study analyzes events from
2000 to 2002, during which time several English-only initiatives
were proposed and defeated. Not only did Colorado voters defeat
Amendment 31 in November 2002, but advocates in Colorado have defeated
anti-bilingual initiatives no fewer than four times over the past
2 years. This article chronicles events, activities, and organizational
developments that have contributed to the defeat of these anti-bilingual,
anti-family, and anti-education proposals. Methods used in this
analysis include informal interviews, document analysis, and expert
interpretation. The study offers 10 findings in the form of “lessons
learned” over the past 2 years that collectively contributed
to the defeat of Amendment 31. The defeat of Amendment 31 in Colorado
provides hope and evidence that Ron Unz, and others of his ilk,
can be defeated. At the same time, the study ends on a cautionary
note, for although a battle has been won, the war to protect the
rights of children and their families rages on.
High
school English language learners need strong oral comprehension
skills for access to oral content in their academic classes. Unfortunately,
instruction in effective listening strategies is often not part
of their English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum. This study
tested the hypothesis that targeted listening strategy instruction
in the ESL classroom results in improved listening comprehension
that can be useful in English language learners’ academic
content classes. After receiving 15 listening strategy training
sessions, participants showed a statistically significant improvement
in discrete and video listening ability, as well as note-taking
ability. This study suggests that targeted listening strategy instruction
should be part of the ESL curriculum. Sources for designing and
implementing effective listening strategy instruction are provided,
and research needs and designs are suggested.
Mexico’s
new model of special education integrates children with special
needs into the regular classroom. In this model, a team called Unit
of Support Services for Regular Education (USAER) is assigned to
a number of schools, and the USAER team works with regular classroom
teachers to meet the needs of special needs students. This study
examined the integration process of this new model and its ramifications
for elementary and special education teachers. Results revealed
concerns about a number of issues, including the lack of preplanning;
lack of inclusion of special and regular education personnel in
the integration process; lack of communication between regular and
special education teachers; and the need to create a community of
learners among all of the participants dedicated to the common goal
of providing quality education for special needs children. This
focus group study of educational integration in Mexico revealed
that it is difficult to achieve fundamental changes on a national
level in long-entrenched educational practices and beliefs. Full Text in PDF Effects of the Learning Together Model of Cooperative Learning on English as a Foreign Language Reading Achievement, Academic Self-Esteem, and Feelings of School Alienation
This
study investigated the effects of the Learning Together cooperative
learning model in improving English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
reading achievement and academic self-esteem and in decreasing feelings
of school alienation. Fifty-six Lebanese high school learners of
EFL participated in the study, and a pretest-posttest control group
experimental design was employed. The results indicated no statistically
significant differences between the control and experimental groups
on the dependent variables of academic self-esteem and feelings
of school alienation. However, the results revealed a statistically
significant difference in favor of the experimental group on the
variable of EFL reading achievement. The author discusses pedagogical
implications and suggests recommendations for further research.
This
paper describes the results of a teacher professional development
intervention aimed at enabling teachers to promote science and literacy
achievement for culturally and linguistically diverse elementary
students. This paper has two objectives: (a) to examine teachers’
initial beliefs and practices about teaching English language and
literacy in science and (b) to examine the impact of the intervention
on teachers’ beliefs and practices. The research involved
53 third- and fourth-grade teachers at six elementary schools in
a large school district with a highly diverse student population.
The results of these first-year professional development efforts,
which form part of a 3-year longitudinal design, indicate that at
the end of the year, teachers expressed more elaborate and coherent
conceptions of literacy in science instruction. In addition, they
provided more effective linguistic scaffolding in an effort to enhance
students’ understanding of science concepts. The results also
suggest that teachers require continuing support in the form of
professional development activities in order to implement and maintain
reform-oriented practices that promote the science and literacy
achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse students.
This
study describes and analyzes a teacher-education partnership between
two institutions of higher education (IHEs) and three local educational
agencies (LEAs) located in a large suburban area. Working collaboratively,
these five organizations designed and developed a career-ladder
teacher-education program that prepares experienced bilingual paraeducators
currently working full time at local schools to become “highly
qualified” teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages,
as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act (2002). In this paper,
we examine the needs and perspectives of an IHE–LEA partnership
and their dynamic relationship to address the specific instructional
needs of paraeducators. Research
in Practice
This
paper describes fourth-grade English language learners in a Spanish-dominant
language community. The author, a teacher researcher, uses discourse
analysis to study the language her students used in a writing group
in a language arts classroom. The discussion concerned a story one
student had written in English. Because the group was student directed
rather than teacher directed, a context was provided for co-construction
of the text by students in the group.
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