Oral language instruction in Spanish: a study of first-grade Spanish speakers in a dual immersion program

This study was designed to answer the following questions: Does additional instruction focused on listening and speaking skills increase students\u27 control over the basic grammatical structures of oral Spanish? What reciprocal effect stronger oral skills have on their reading and writing skills? As a bilingual teacher, I am concerned that a growing number of our Spanish-speaking children enter our dual-immersion program with low oral skills in Spanish. The methods used include pre and post assessments with the OLAI in Spanish, student anecdotal records, teaching journal, and a checklist of basic oral skills. The study was conducted over the course of five action research cycles based on one of the five sentences structures explicitly targeted. The results of this study indicate that all participants, with additional instruction, increased their control over the basic sentence structures in Spanish. The students constructed their increased control through small group conversations guided by the teacher