The impact of the introduction of bilingual learning on sixth grade educational achievement levels.

Bilingualism was implemented in the Community of Madrid (Spain) more than ten years ago, through the incorporation of the English language in the teaching methods of certain schools. Since that time, various research projects have been carried out, with the objective of comparing the academic performance of students in bilingual schools with those in non-bilingual schools. The present paper makes use of primary education data from the Department of Education and Research for the Community of Madrid in an effort to analyze whether or not bilingualism results in the relative improvement of educational outcomes achieved in primary schools in the Region of Madrid, in Spain. More specifically, the data used is from sixth grade classrooms, given that, generally speaking, in this grade all schools give a standardized test which measures academic performance in Math, Science and Technology, Spanish Language Arts and English Language Arts. Our assessment makes use of a multinomial logit model, and includes the most common variables found in the research on the determination of educational outcomes (variables related to whether or not schools are bilingual, which is the main focus of this paper), as well as other less common variables considered to be relevant. These include absenteeism, satisfaction levels among families and students, and the percentage of students in second chance programs. The results show that bilingualism does not lower children performance in the subjects taught in English or in the subjects taught in Spanish. Academic performance in Mathematics, Science and Technology, and Spanish Language Arts is similar with respect to those schools which are not bilingual. However, results in English are significantly higher in bilingual schools when compared to non-bilingual schools.

Crime and Inequality in Academic Achievement Across School Districts in the United States.

This study investigates the effect of violent crime on school district-level achievement in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. The research design exploits variation in achievement and violent crime across 813 school districts in the United States and seven birth cohorts of children born between 1996 and 2002. The identification strategy leverages exogenous shocks to crime rates arising from the availability of federal funds to hire police officers in the local police departments where the school districts operate. Results show that children who entered the school system when the violent crime rate in their school districts was lower score higher in ELA by the end of eighth grade, relative to children attending schools in the same district but who entered the school system when the violent crime rate was higher. A 10% decline in the violent crime rate experienced at ages 0-6 raises eighth-grade ELA achievement in the district by 0.03 standard deviations. Models that estimate effects by race and gender show larger impacts among Black children and boys. The district-wide effect on mathematics achievement is smaller and statistically nonsignificant. These findings extend our understanding of the geography of educational opportunity in the United States and reinforce the idea that understanding inequalities in academic achievement requires evidence on what happens inside as well as outside schools.

Predicting international students' clinical and academic grades using two language tests (IELTS and C-test): A correlational research study.

Academic English tests are used to ascertain if international English as a Second Language nursing students have sufficient language skills to commence their nursing degrees, and later, if they have sufficient English for nursing registration. However, an academic English test may not be appropriate for clinical contexts. This study examines the relationship between two types of English test and the performance of forty-nine undergraduate international nursing students in both their first year of theory-centred academic topics and practice-centred clinical topics. An academic English test, called the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and a general English proficiency/processing speed test using a variation of the cloze-test (C-test) format were administered at the commencement of the students' course of study. At the end of one year, grade percentages were collected. It was found that both the IELTS test and the C-test were significantly correlated to both types of topic, albeit with different patterns. The two English tests were also tested for similarities in the constructs they measured, with a significant overlap found. The implications are to rethink the way English tests are applied to entry in university degrees involving a clinical component and, by extension, to direct universities to rethink how nursing students are supported during their degree. The question is also raised about the practice of using academic English tests for professional nursing registration purposes. The benefits of the two testing approaches are also considered, particularly the large differences in monetary outlay and time found between the two tests, given their performance in explaining the variance in grade outcomes.

Predictive validity of the classroom strategies scale-observer form on statewide testing scores: an initial investigation.

The present study examined the validity of a teacher observation measure, the Classroom Strategies Scale--Observer Form (CSS), as a predictor of student performance on statewide tests of mathematics and English language arts. The CSS is a teacher practice observational measure that assesses evidence-based instructional and behavioral management practices in elementary school. A series of two-level hierarchical generalized linear models were fitted to data of a sample of 662 third- through fifth-grade students to assess whether CSS Part 2 Instructional Strategy and Behavioral Management Strategy scale discrepancy scores (i.e., ∑ |recommended frequency--frequency ratings|) predicted statewide mathematics and English language arts proficiency scores when percentage of minority students in schools was controlled. Results indicated that the Instructional Strategy scale discrepancy scores significantly predicted mathematics and English language arts proficiency scores: Relatively larger discrepancies on observer ratings of what teachers did versus what should have been done were associated with lower proficiency scores. Results offer initial evidence of the predictive validity of the CSS Part 2 Instructional Strategy discrepancy scores on student academic outcomes.

[DeCS terminology and the new rules on orthography of Portuguese language: guidelines for an update]. / Terminologia DeCS e as novas regras ortográficas da língua portuguesa: orientações para uma atualização.

PURPOSE: To indicate orthographic changes to be used as a basic reference for professionals, researchers, doctors, teachers, students and users, which are directly linked and performing activities in health services in general, aimed at implementing the correct orthography in recovery and production of their scientific studies. METHODS: For data collection, were shown some examples of terminology DeCS (Descriptors in Health Science) analyzed according to the current spelling and compared with the Orthographic Vocabulary of Portuguese Language (VOLP). RESULTS: It was select and listed examples of key words and/or terms related to Health Sciences, which was compared to the respective rules of the Orthographic Agreement of Portuguese Language, and divided into three items: graphical accentuation, the non use of dieresis and exceptions and, the use of hyphen. CONCLUSION: This study show some guidelines for the orthographic alterations of the terms used by scientific community, according the new orthographic rules, contributing for the efficiency in the description of the documents and consequently in their recovery.

Terminologia DeCS e as novas regras ortográficas da língua portuguesa: orientações para uma atualização / DeCS terminology and the new rules on orthography of Portuguese language: guidelines for an update

OBJETIVO: Destacar as mudanças ortográficas a serem utilizadas como referencial básico por profissionais, pesquisadores, médicos, professores, alunos e usuários, que estão diretamente vinculados e exercendo atividades nos serviços de saúde em geral, visando à aplicação da ortografia correta na recuperação e produção de seus trabalhos científicos. MÉTODOS: Para a coleta dos dados, foram mostrados alguns exemplos de termos DeCS (Descritores em Ciências da Saúde), analisados conforme a ortografia vigente e comparados com o Vocabulário Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa (VOLP). RESULTADOS: Foram selecionados e listados exemplos de descritores e/ou termos relacionados às Ciências da Saúde, os quais foram comparados com as respectivas regras do Acordo Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa e divididos em três itens: acentuação gráfica, o não uso do trema e suas exceções e o uso ou não do hífen. CONCLUSÃO: Este estudo indica algumas diretrizes para as alterações dos descritores de acordo com a Nova Ortografia da Língua Portuguesa, contribuindo para a eficiência na descrição dos conteúdos dos documentos e na sua recuperação.

PURPOSE: To indicate orthographic changes to be used as a basic reference for professionals, researchers, doctors, teachers, students and users, which are directly linked and performing activities in health services in general, aimed at implementing the correct orthography in recovery and production of their scientific studies. METHODS: For data collection, were shown some examples of terminology DeCS (Descriptors in Health Science) analyzed according to the current spelling and compared with the Orthographic Vocabulary of Portuguese Language (VOLP). RESULTS: It was select and listed examples of key words and/or terms related to Health Sciences, which was compared to the respective rules of the Orthographic Agreement of Portuguese Language, and divided into three items: graphical accentuation, the non use of dieresis and exceptions and, the use of hyphen. CONCLUSION: This study show some guidelines for the orthographic alterations of the terms used by scientific community, according the new orthographic rules, contributing for the efficiency in the description of the documents and consequently in their recovery.

Production of tense marking in successive bilingual children: when do they converge with their monolingual peers?

Children with English as a second language (L2) with exposure of 18 months or less exhibit similar difficulties to children with Specific Language Impairment in tense marking, a marker of language impairment for English. This paper examines whether L2 children with longer exposure converge with their monolingual peers in the production of tense marking. Thirty-eight successive bilingual Turkish-English speaking (L2) children with a mean age of 7;8 and 33 monolingual English-speaking (L1) age-matched controls completed the screening test of the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI). The L2 children as a group were as accurate as the controls in the production of -ed, but performed significantly lower than the controls in the production of third person -s. Age and years of exposure (YoE) affected the children's performance. The highest age-expected performance on the TEGI was attested in 8- and 9-year-old children who had 4-6 YoE. L1 and L2 children performed better in regular compared to irregular verbs, but L2 children overregularized more than L1 children and were less sensitive to the phonological properties of verbs. The results show that tense marking and the screening test of the TEGI may be promising for differential diagnosis in 8- and 9-year-old L2 children with at least four YoE.

How teachers would spend their time teaching language arts: the mismatch between self-reported and best practices.

As teacher quality becomes a central issue in discussions of children's literacy, both researchers and policy makers alike express increasing concern with how teachers structure and allocate their lesson time for literacy-related activities as well as with what they know about reading development, processes, and pedagogy. The authors examined the beliefs, literacy knowledge, and proposed instructional practices of 121 first-grade teachers. Through teacher self-reports concerning the amount of instructional time they would prefer to devote to a variety of language arts activities, the authors investigated the structure of teachers' implicit beliefs about reading instruction and explored relationships between those beliefs, expertise with general or special education students, years of experience, disciplinary knowledge, and self-reported distribution of an array of instructional practices. They found that teachers' implicit beliefs were not significantly associated with their status as a regular or special education teacher, the number of years they had been teaching, or their disciplinary knowledge. However, it was observed that subgroups of teachers who highly valued particular approaches to reading instruction allocated their time to instructional activities associated with other approaches in vastly different ways. It is notable that the practices of teachers who privileged reading literature over other activities were not in keeping with current research and policy recommendations. Implications and considerations for further research are discussed.