The book provides a review of scientific research on the learning outcomes of students with limited or no proficiency in English in U.S. schools. Research on students in kindergarten to grade 12 is reviewed. The primary chapters of the book focus on these students' acquisition of oral language skills in English, their development of literacy (reading & writing) skills in English, instructional issues in teaching literacy, and achievement in academic domains (i.e., mathematics, science, and reading). The reviews and analyses of the research are relatively technical with a focus on research quality, design characteristics, and statistical analyses. The book provides a set of summary tables that give details about each study, including full references, characteristics of the students in the research, assessment tools and procedures, and results. A concluding chapter summarizes the major issues discussed and makes recommendations about particular areas that need further research.
In a growing number of schools in the U.S., students are learning through two languages in programs that aim to develop dual language proficiency along with academic achievement. These two‐way immersion programs integrate language minority and language majority students and provide content area instruction and language development in two languages. This article provides a picture of the current state of two‐way immersion education in the U.S. based on a study (undertaken between 1991 and 1994) of over 160 schools. Two‐way programs typically share the goals of bilingual proficiency, academic achievement, and positive crosscultural attitudes and behaviors, but they vary a good deal in the approaches and strategies they use to work toward those goals. A host of local factors affect such issues as student enrollment, program design, and instructional features. Emerging results of studies of two‐way immersion programs point to their effectiveness in educating nonnative‐English‐speaking students, their promise of expanding our nation's language resources by conserving the native language (L1) skills of minority students and developing second language (L2) skills in English‐speaking students, and their hope of improving relationships between majority and minority groups by enhancing crosscultural understanding and appreciation.
Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, significant numbers of Vietnamese refugees have been arriving in the United States. The current situation gives rise to unique laboratory for observing the development of a variety of English, given the social circumstances that led to the abrupt influx of refugees. Based on sociolinguistic interviews with over 90 subjects in Northern Virginia, Christian et al. (1983) have described the ethnographic aspects of language usage and maintenance and the development of particular phonological amd grammatical features of English among four different age groups (10-12, 15-18, 20-25 and 35-55), and two different lengths of residency groups (1-3 and 4-7 years of residency) of Vietnamese immigrants. Language values and attitudes encourage both the use and maintenance of Vietnamese in some situations as well as the development of English proficiency. The specific investigation of English structures such as plural, third person singular absence, multiple negation, and unmarked tense indicates that the emerging variety is resisting diffusion from the nonstandard dialects of English while perpetuating some modification of English structures that may give rise to a unique ethnic variety of English.
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