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AUSTIN — Put young children who struggle with English in a classroom with English-speaking students and teach in two languages. Soon, both groups of children will become bilingual and bi-literate with the youngsters helping each other develop two languages, say supporters of such dual-language immersion. But others are balking at the experiment that Texas lawmakers approved this spring, contending it's turning children into guinea pigs. With House Bill 2814, legislators created a six-year pilot program that will test a dual-language program in up to 10 Texas public school districts and 30 campuses. English was not the first language of more...

Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich released the following statement today on YouTube in English and in Spanish.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney is now officially a flip-flopper in two languages. This revelation comes courtesy of the New Hampshire Union Leader and Boston Phoenix blogger David Bernstein. “A week ago, in response to a question during an interview with New Hampshire Union Leader editors and a reporter, Mitt Romney said, ‘English needs to be the language that is spoken in America. We cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada.’ ” “Five days later, a Romney news release announced that the campaign had ‘launched its first Spanish radio ad,’ ” the Union-Leader points out. The kicker: The ad ends with...

A `really big step' for Spanish TAKS tests in Texas More questions will be developed in students' native language By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle To take the interactive version of last year's third-grade reading TAKS in Spanish or any other released TAKS test, visit www.tea.state.tx.us/ student.assessment/resources/release/ As nearly 50,000 students sit down this testing season to tackle the Spanish-language version of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge of Skills, they'll be answering a record number of questions developed in their native language. That's a marked change for Texas' standardized test, which for a decade relied exclusively on so-called "transadapted"...

DALLAS -- As the only Spanish-speaking staffer in his division, Dallas city employee Norman Herrera takes at least one call a day from a resident en español. The questions range from where to pay a parking ticket to how to get trash pick up on a day other than Thursday. "We get those calls in English all the time. When you get those in Spanish, you want to answer them," said Herrera, a special assistant to the Dallas mayor. "If we can't communicate with them ... I don't think we're doing our job." Demand for bilingual employees like Herrera is...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language, Canadian scientists said on Friday. Researchers said the extra effort involved in using more than one language appeared to boost blood supply to the brain and ensure nerve connections remained healthy -- two factors thought to help fight off dementia. "We are pretty dazzled by the results," Professor Ellen Bialystok of Toronto's York University said in a statement.

HURST -- In the fourth grade, Mady Escamilla moved from Mexico to the United States. At home, her mother spoke only Spanish. At school, Mady struggled to learn English while adjusting to a new country. Now, the 13-year-old is enrolled in Advanced Placement Spanish at Hurst Junior High. She hopes to earn college credit, attend a university and get a degree in photography or psychology, things her parents never did. "It gives us a big advantage," Escamilla said of the class. "We all work hard and want the same things." Hundreds of native Spanish-speaking Texas middle schoolers are taking AP...

Austin area school, government and emergency services are influenced by non-English speakers.Spanish tops the list of languages other than English spoken in the Austin area, followed by Asian languages like Vietnamese and Korean. But Urdu also can be heard in Austin, along with Dutch in Round Rock and Russian in Hays County. It's a language smorgasbord prevalent throughout the state and the country. About 6 million Texans older than age 5 spoke a language other than English in 2000, and of those, about 2.7 million spoke English less than "very well," the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. In 14 million U.S....

PHOENIX -- Some Arizonans are lashing out at the state's campaign finance agency for its bilingual candidate pamphlet, which critics call an affront both for reasons of language and cost. The Citizens Clean Elections Commission received 17 letters and faxes critical of the pamphlet mailed to all voters' households before the primary election, and a commission aide said dozens more people telephoned the commission's Phoenix office to complain. The criticism of the bilingual pamphlet, mailed to 1.6 million Arizona households, comes at a time of increased debate concerning illegal immigration and several months before Arizonans vote on a legislative referendum...

FOREST PARK, Ga. - On his first day of school, 5-year-old Al-Khafid Sharrieff Muhammad came home to tell his mom he didn't understand what anyone was saying in class. Just as she was second-guessing sending her child to Georgia's first dual language public school, he grinned and started rattling off all the Spanish words he learned. "Do you know what a nino is? It's me," Rashida Muhammad recalled Al-Khafid as saying. While the country is divided over the role of immigrants and the importance of a national language, some English- and Spanish-speaking parents in this Atlanta suburb are bypassing the...

When the Census Bureau released its American Community Survey analyzing demographic trends among U.S. households last week, the Washington Post and the New York Times, the flagship newspapers of the Eastern liberal establishment, celebrated the news with front-page stories. The Census Bureau’s data confirmed that the U.S. continues to be inundated by a flood of immigrants both legal and illegal (a distinction the bureau does not even make). One Nation The top-of-the-page headline in the Post said: “Area Immigrants Top 1 Million.” The Times’ front-page headline read: “New Data Shows Immigrants’ Growth and Reach.” “Last year, one in five people...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he believes full immersion is the best approach to teaching English and will not support a Senate bill that would force the state Board of Education to approve bilingual textbooks in California classrooms. "I learned English by immersion, and believe in my heart that full immersion is the best method of teaching language that exists," he wrote this week to Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland. The letter, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, is in response to a bill by Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Whittier, which would require the board to approve bilingual textbooks. "I...

-New employee benefit intended to improve service for Spanish speakers- At Austin's Municipal Court, it seems that every other customer that Terry Moreno helps is a Spanish speaker, she said. "That's a majority of our job a lot of the time," said Moreno, a motions clerk who often works at the front window of the court. "We have to speak Spanish because our customers speak Spanish. . . . There's a barrier if you can't explain to them what they need to know." But at this point, Moreno does not get rewarded for the critical skills she brings to the...

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Students who are learning English as a second language could soon have to take the regular state English exam. The federal government has informed New York State that some of its testing methods don't comply with the No Child Left Behind law. The finding applies to tests given to students with disabilities and those with limited proficiency in English. Richard Mills, the state education commissioner, was notified of the finding in a letter from Henry Johnson, the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. The state could lose one-point-two million dollars if the problem isn't...

Cross posted at Iowans for RomneyMany people wonder about Mitt Romney's stance or experience with the "hot-button" issue of illegal immigraton As an intro, below is Gov. Romney's experience with Massachusetts "English Immersion " Program which 68% of voters supported to end "Biligual Education" in the state schools: bostonherald.com, 7-16-03 “Watered Down English Immersion Law Incurs Governor's Wrath” BOSTON, MA - After the Massachusetts legislature carved out exemptions to a voter-approved English-immersion law for immigrants, Governor Mitt Romney called their action an act of "unfathomable arrogance" and vowed to oust legislators who backed the move. An overwhelming 68% percent of...

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) - The library system in this suburban Atlanta county says no mas - it won't buy any more thrillers, romance novels or other works of adult fiction in Spanish. The decision has angered Hispanic leaders and thrust Gwinnett County - where one out of six residents is Hispanic - into the nation's immigration debate. Last week, the library board in this fast-growing county of 700,000 people eliminated the $3,000 that had been set aside to buy Spanish-language fiction in the coming fiscal year. It offered no explanation, but the chairman said such book purchases would lead readers...

President Bush has outlined what sounds like a middle ground for immigration. (I know I may have lost half of you, but give me a chance.) In my (not so humble) opinion, here's the pluses" 1. There's an immediate move to plug the holes. 2. The National Guard will be more likely to check the drug cartels in Mexican Army uniforms that the local police and even the Border Patrol. 3. There's a promise to end to the "catch and release" debacle 4. There's a tiered system of settling who stays and who goes and under what circumstances. 5. The...

Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficient (LEP) Pilot Program The following applications have been preliminarily selected to receive a grant for the Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Pilot Program. Revised 4/12/06 Contacts: Carlos Garza(Funding) Discretionary Grants Phone: (512) 463-9269 carlos.garza@tea.state.tx.us Roberto Manzo (Program) Office Education Initiatives Phone: (512) 936-6060 roberto.manzo@tea.state.tx.us Program Description: The purpose of the Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Pilot Program is: To implement multi-age programs serving 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds that assure that English language learning children receive appropriate activities to enter school prepared to succeed. The pilot program must provide many opportunities for the...

From: "CNY Latino - Hugo" To: "Jon Alvarez" Subject: Pidiendo ayuda, por favor... Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 13:42:43 -0400 Hi: I have prepared this generic note, to selected people that have frequent communication with my monthly “bilingual” publication, and that also I think they might have influences and/or connections with business owners, key people in large organizations, distinguished people, or simply know "somebody" that could help us keep the CNY Latino newspaper alive... We are going through some financial difficulties; advertisement (the ONLY source of income for this publication) has been very low for the last four months (4...

The state Board of Education on Monday approved options for textbooks to be used in classrooms through 2014, but rejected pleas from bilingual education advocates who wanted to include textbooks that address the needs of English learners while teaching California's curriculum. Critics of the current options for schools - including Assemblywomen Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, and Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles - wanted the board to also let schools use textbooks they said would help non-English speakers with vocabulary while learning basic subject matter. Instead, the board voted 6-4 to adopt the recommendations of its curriculum committee, leaving English-as-a-second-language instruction separate...