This study is an investigation of issues of language planning and education in Aruba and how these might facilitate effective change on the island. The questions for this study were. (1) What are the predominant language varieties in Aruba, and to what uses are they put? (2) What is the official plan the Aruba government has put into place for educational change? (3) What generalizable implications for language planning and education surface from an in depth look at the context in Aruba? Major findings are the following: (1) The four predominant languages in Aruba are Papiamento, Dutch, Spanish and English. Papiamento is the indigenous language of the island used at home and as the lingua franca for island business. Dutch is the language of all official government documents and is the medium of instruction in the schools. Spanish language is utilized in homes of Aruban immigrants from Spanish speaking homelands and is commonly spoken among tourists and businesses catering to tourism. English is the vernacular language used at home for many Aruban families living in the San Nicolas geographic area of Aruba and is the language that dominates the tourism business. (2) The Aruban Department of Education has developed various plans for innovative change for their education system and is working in conjunction with several other agencies to bring systematic change to education in Aruba. These plans address language issues among others and are being implemented as legal strides are made. (3) In the context of Aruban culture and language, (a) education professionals have a responsibility to explore the ideological foundations of their theories and practices, (b) a commitment to structural equality is necessary, and (c) commitment to language planning in Aruba, and in any nation, requires a commitment to the struggle for language rights. Aruba's current political efforts are focused on initiating change for educational practice and theory. Aruba is in a position of unlimited possibilities to plan, design, and implement a new revised educational system that will change the culture of schooling in Aruba.

The purpose of this study is to examine the theories of orientations in the context of a Japanese-as-a-foreign-language (JFL) classroom in the Northwest of the United States. Using a Grounded Theory methodology, this study includes data from card-sorting activities, teacher and student interviews, classroom observations, and scenario studies. The perspectives of language planning--theories of orientations--bring socio-political aspects to the foreign language classroom context, and help to describe the participants' voices, hopes and determinations toward learning Japanese in a foreign language classroom setting. The existing theories of orientations and the abstraction of the data results are merged into a new taxonomy. The notion of Grounded Theory--an interplay of data and theories--is a central perspective throughout the study. The JFL program in the Northwest reflects many aspects of the language-as-resource orientation. Most of the participants' voices and hopes are explicitly included in the program and in some standards on foreign language education. However, heritage language and identity issues are not explicitly discussed in this program. The research suggests that this program consider this aspect and develop an appropriate methodology for this population. In addition, a new descriptive orientation taxonomy is suggested in the coding process: Language as means of communication, Language as linguistic means, and Language as a mediator of culture (with two different emphases: First language and culture; and Any language and culture). The research findings and interpretations were negotiated with the participants in order to assure their appropriateness, and the study includes two-year data from various interviews, ranging from a pilot study to final interviews. Final interviews were conducted in addition to the main study in order to assure the results and my interpretations of interview quotations. This study contributes to research methodology itself by incorporating various research tools including descriptive statistics and traditional qualitative methods. As an exploration of this topic, this study presents important implications to foreign language education and pedagogy, and to theory development in language planning and policy.

During the last several years, the growing interest in the teachability of pragmatics in a second or foreign language has been represented by a number of interventional studies that have examined either the possibility of teaching certain pragmatic features, or the effectiveness of specific teaching methods. This classroom-based project designed to investigate the teachability of pragmatics, focused on four intact classes at two different proficiency levels, using a quasi-experimental research design with the following structure: pretest - treatment - posttest - and delayed posttest. Participants were enrolled in a program of Foreign Languages at a university in Colombia. Two groups of students of basic English 2 (second semester) and two groups of students of intermediate English 1 (fifth semester) were the participants. The four groups received a written discourse completion test (WDCT) and a paired video-taped role-play (RP) as pretests. Results from the WDCT showed no significant differences between the two groups at each level, so the type of treatment (T1: pragmatics-based, and T2: institutionally imparted) was randomly assigned to the groups at each level. Treatment 1 provided learners with sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic information and practice of receptive and productive skills in the TL. The treatment lasted 20 hours distributed across three weeks, after which, all the participants received a post-test in the same two forms taken by the pretest. The comparison of paired samples between the pre-test and the post-test, and the comparison of multivariate means between groups at each level showed significant differences that confirmed the efficiency of the pragmatics-based instruction, although improvement was more evident in WDCT performance than in RP performance. The qualitative analysis indicated progress in the ability to perform the expected speech act, the use of typical expressions, and the amount of information given. Improvement was also salient in macrolevel cultural aspects such as the expression of appropriate levels of formality, directness and politeness for the realizations of requests, apologies and compliments, as measured by the WDCT and the RP. The delayed post-test suggests that the pragmatics-oriented instruction favored both retention and improvement for the WDCT, while for the RP, the main effect was retention.

Does learning English help undocumented Mexican transmigrants get better jobs in the United States? In this transborder ethnography, I worked with three households of undocumented people in Tucson, Arizona and traveled to their hometowns in Mexico, to better understand the context of their migration. For these migrants, speaking English did not lead to better jobs. Some employers tried to prevent them from learning English. Others were fired for using English to complain about unpaid wages. One person who was fired was replaced by a monolingual Spanish speaker. Many Americans think that all immigrants must learn English, and this discourse is common, both in the political and educational arenas. However, this study demonstrates that alongside this social discourse, there is a parallel economic discourse, urging the production of docile workers. Docility means not speaking English. Despite these findings, the discourse of "learning English in order to find better work" is a persistent one among the undocumented. I traced its origins and found that it begins shortly after a migrant arrives in the U.S. If English did not lead to better jobs, why did migrants learn it? For some people, it was because English helped them perform the identity of a U.S. citizen. They used self-consciously constructed semiotic and linguistic performances to appear Chicano/a, and these performances lessened their anxiety about deportation. For others, English was a conflicted symbol. Although it was a symbol of wealth, and therefore desirable, using it in public could easily reveal one's legal status to the wrong interlocutor. There are significant obstacles to the use of English among undocumented Mexican transmigrants, and language use is essential for language mastery. This study encourages those who teach English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) to understand the social structures that impact their students' language use. With implications for education, border, and immigration policy, this study sheds light on the lived experiences of undocumented migrants and brings language and language use into conversations about globalization. Understanding transmigrants' experiences and ideologies offers a new lens to theorizing social inequality and human agency, and ultimately, to creating more humane borders.

This study examines language and education policy in colonial as well as independent Mozambique. Mozambican people struggled for 500 years to free themselves from the grip of Portuguese colonialism. Independence came in 1975. A decade of intense and determined Struggle for Liberation stopped the Portuguese from further destroying the country. The review of the literature provides key concepts and principles in language planning and policy. Then the study examines language and education in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. The ideas and opinions of African writers are brought into the discussion. The main study starts by looking at language and education in colonial Mozambique starting in 1940. This period is important in the educational history of Mozambique. It was during this time that the Missionary Statute, an agreement between the Government of Portugal and the Catholic church, came into being. This agreement entrusted Portuguese Catholic missionaries with education in the colonies. Missionary education viewed Mozambican languages, culture and all things African as deficits. Missionary schools were places of unlearning all things that instilled pride in the Mozambican people. When the War of Liberation broke out in 1964, Mozambicans established their own schools in the areas liberated from the Portuguese. These schools instilled in the students the much needed Mozambican character, and personality. They became the model for independent Mozambique's New System of Education. Mozambique is a nation of many languages. During the colonial period the Portuguese proscribed the use of these languages in education. Consequently, many languages in Mozambique today have not been studied academically. This study uses historical research methods to gather and analyze data, and records the struggles of the Mozambican people as they work toward reconstructing their beautiful country. The study concludes that communities and government be involved in promoting all Mozambican languages. While this study is critical of Portuguese colonialism, it is not an attack on the Portuguese language. The paradox is that while Portuguese is the colonial language, it is also the language of liberation for Mozambicans. It is in this sense that the Portuguese language was declared the language of unity, instruction, and government.

This study was designed to provide an in-depth examination of biliteracy development among students in a bilingual, second and third grade classroom over the course of one academic year. Biliteracy refers to children's literate competencies in two languages. This qualitative study focused on understanding biliteracy among children who were already bilingual in English and Spanish, and those who were monolingual in English. The three basic questions guiding this study are the following: (1) Can children become biliterate in this setting? (2) What kinds of classroom cultural practices foster biliteracy development? and (3) What are the theoretical and practical implications of these dual literacy practices for the development of a biliterate pedagogy? Three case studies of students provide insights into the processes of dual literacy learning. These case studies highlight significant aspects of each student's developing biliteracy, and are intended to demonstrate that there are multiple paths to and contexts for biliteracy development in English and Spanish. The results of this inquiry suggest that biliteracy development in classrooms is feasible, but that teachers and students must create "additive" conditions for learning that make both languages "unmarked" for classroom work. The study provides insights into the relationships between student characteristics and classroom dynamics, the specific contexts, processes, and content of English-Spanish biliteracy within the classroom. This study also raises issues for further research and pedagogy in this important but neglected area of study.

Boloz and Lincoln (1983) conducted an intervention study concerning Native American student absences in the public schools in a rural setting. There is little known about Native American student absences in the public school in metropolitan areas. To address this issue, a qualitative study was conducted with the community members from an American Indian community in a metropolitan area. This community was chosen as a result of a pilot study that indicated there may be reasons for student absences not previously identified. The present research (a) documented the parents' and community members' understanding of student absenteeism in an American Indian community, (b) explored parents' and community members' values regarding school attendance in light of the values in the American Indian community, (c) examined the local district policy regarding absenteeism, (d) explored the congruence/incongruence of the local district policy with the family values in the American Indian community, and (e) explored collaborative problem solving directions the school district and community could consider. Nineteen people were interviewed. All had different positions within the community, including tribal administration, school personnel, parents and relatives of school children. Many interviewees functioned in more than one capacity such as tribal administrator and parent. Individual interviews and focus group sessions were analyzed using themes and categorical analysis to discern the community attitudes toward student absenteeism in the public schools. The study revealed that community members all valued education and school attendance. There were differences among people regarding their understanding of excused or unexcused absences. Parents and community members defined what they felt were responsibilities for themselves, school personnel, and tribal administration. School district policy defined student absences by using a coding system, yet parents and community members defined student absences in terms of family needs not district policy (e.g., there were many interpretations of what constituted illness). Parents and community members preferred to deal with school personnel on an individual basis although they expressed discomfort entering the schools. Several recommendations were made, based on parent and community member comments, for further dialogue among the parents, tribal administration, community members, school personnel, and district administration. Neither the American Indian community nor the school district were identified in this study to maintain anonymity for the American Indian people involved.

The purpose of this study is to create rich, descriptive portraits of the identity perceptions of three female, Mexican American adolescents, as revealed through selected texts of multiple sign systems. These portraits support the concept that identity is a continuum which is complex, dynamic, and multi-faceted. The identities of the participants encompass elements which were derived from each participant individually as well as from their relationships of connection to or opposition of others. Discussing concepts of identity with the participants exemplified that one's identity is a process which is continually evolving and transforming. This transformative process involves experiences of tension, observation, reflection, and action which encourage an individual to adjust, add, or discard particular elements of one's identity. Each participant's integrated self identity entails their individual and relational elements as well as the changes made through tension, observation, reflection, and action. The ethnographic case study design of the research facilitated an exploration of the complexities of constructing one's identity as an adolescent who must reconcile aspects of culture, gender, and class. Data collection methods included in-depth interviews, participant and non-participant observation in various data collection sites including school, home, and work, and the gathering of written, visual, and auditory artifacts such as poetry, personal writing, photographs, drawings, and music. Data were analyzed inductively and compared, and case studies reported the findings. The portraits of these three young women illustrate the importance of providing our adolescent students with classroom opportunities to explore and construct their identities through texts of multiple sign systems. By expanding the concept of text to include multiple ways of knowing, educators invite students to express themselves through a variety of sign systems with which they may feel more comfortable. They may use "conventional" literacy, such as reading and writing, and "unconventional" literacies, including music, art, and movement. The portraits of the three female adolescents emphasize the necessity to embrace and seek to understand the multiple identities of our adolescent students, rather than judging them on assumptions made based on their race, class, or gender.

The purpose of this case study is to examine the nature and uses of multiple literacies in an Opera Project as experienced by school children who attended a bilingual first grade in a culturally and linguistically diverse urban school district in the American Southwest. Thirty-one young children created and produced an opera in collaboration with an artist-in-residence, university researcher, apprentice teacher, and their classroom teacher and parents. Significant to this research is a focus on the perspectives of the participants about this in-school multiple literacy experience as well as the sociocultural contexts that influenced their experience. In addition, this study provides evidence of the processes, types, and uses of multiple literacies in young children's opera. By working at the nexus of language arts/literacy and music/arts education, this research builds on the existing theories and practices in these disciplines and informs both. A review of the literature points to the gap between a reductionist, deficit-driven paradigm in schools and children's natural learning proclivities. Culturally and linguistically diverse children are considered as less capable and further marginalized by school practices that emphasize decontextualized and verbocentric forms of literacy. This study uses ethnographic techniques and an arts-based approach to educational research to examine 24 one hour sessions of an Opera Project. New understandings were rendered in an opera libretto, constructed in the vernacular of the participants with the personal signature of the researcher. This alternative genre contributes to changing the way we think about language arts. A reconceptualization of language arts/literacy that both includes and goes beyond a skills-with-print definition requires a transformation in the way educators think about meaning making and curriculum, intelligence and knowledge, perception and expression. It requires an unpacking of one's assumptions and perspectives about what it means to have an experience and to live a literate life. For this process to be sustained, a wider audience must have access to young children's opera as (1) semiotic apprenticeship, (2) inquiry, (3) synergy, (4) an awakening to multiple literacies, and (5) survival. In this way art as conscious life is literacy for life's sake. Many ways is the way.

Decipherment is the tool used to uncover several types of hand signs that played vital roles in the creation of hidden messages in classic artwork. A 3,100 B.C. bas-relief of The 'Kaph' Telescope, formerly named The Narmer Palette, and Michaelangelo Buonarrotte's Battle of Cascina of 1506 were two key works of art that show certain similarities even though separated by 4,500 years. It is evident that Renaissance humanists provided artists with certain knowledge of the ancients. Results of incorporating a number of minor works of art showed that the competence of ancient Egyptians, Cretans and Australian Aboriginals, to name a few, as astronomers, was underestimated. Some deciphered Indus seals attested to a global understanding of the universe, with Gemini and the star of Thuban at the center of their attention. Certain forms of secrecy had to be undertaken for various reasons throughout the millennia. Three examples are: (1) In Italy, to keep controversial and truthful teachings discreet and hidden, artists embedded them in artwork long before the plight of Galileo Galilei and his discoveries. (2) Among Jewish Kabbalists, a well-known design was obscured in The Arnolfini Wedding painting for fear it would be lost due to persecution. (3) Michaelangelo Buonarrotte indicated several meanings through the hands of The Statue of Moses. They were overlooked by several societies, including the gesticulating culture of Italy, because they oppressed the value of signed languages. Spatial decipherment may testify to a need for the restoration of a spatial writing system for expanded linguistic accessibility. A 21st century model community for sign language residents and employees will benefit visual learners, particularly visual artists and non-phonetic decipherers, to better uncover, understand and perhaps use ancient hand forms to restore ancient knowledge. Moreover, the National Association of Teaching English (NATE) has recently endorsed the addition of two skills, viewing and visual representing, to the traditional list of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Students will master these two new skills far more effectively when they are exposed to such a signing community.