Review by Choice Review
Valdes (Stanford Univ.), Capitelli (Univ. San Francisco), and Alvarez (doctoral candidate, Stanford Univ.) describe one-on-one English, a five-year project that examines an after-school program carried out by adult volunteers from Stanford University for 45 minutes twice a week for K-2 students who spoke little or no English. In chapter one, Valdes reviews the limited research on second-language acquisition and finds it not particularly useful for teachers. She notes that under the 1998 English for the Children proposition passed by California voters, non-English-speaking students are expected to become fluent English speakers in one year; however, only 2.5 percent of students actually are fluent. The following five chapters describe the project and its results. Each volunteer read books and played games with an individual student and focused on developing participatory competence where students could interact in English. Students remained in the program for up to three years and did advance in their English skills, but how much of that advance can be attributed to the after-school program is unknown. The authors note the problematic nature of the various tests used to assess English language skills and that students' growth in English is not linear. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate and research collections. J. A. Reyhner Northern Arizona University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
