In the not so distant future, speaking a foreign language may be yet another thing elementary school children can do with ease. Take for instance Utah and Delaware, where state money is being used to implement foreign language immersion programs.

In this article prepared for the Colorín Colorado! website, Jennifer Himmel, Center for Applied Linguistics, provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners.

This study, published in the journal Language Testing, describes the development and validation of the Extract the Base test, which assesses derivational morphological awareness. Scores on this test were validated for 580 monolingual students and 373 Spanish-speaking English language learners in third through fifth grade. CAL contributors include Valerie Malabonga, Dorry Kenyon, Mohammed Louguit, and Diane August.

Since 1997, the percentage of elementary and middle schools that offer foreign language courses has fallen significantly, from 31 percent to 25 percent at the elementary level and from 75 percent to 58 percent at the middle school level, according to a nationwide survey of public and private schools conducted in 2008 by the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C.