Kathy Maniates, a bilingual teacher at Leal Elementary School in Urbana, Ill., wrote “adverbios” in big letters on the middle of the dry erase board. She asked her students if they recognized the term from their English class. One student raised her hand, gave the word and definition in English and another answered in Spanish.

Maniates then wrote “Yo hablo _” on the board. She asked the students to think of different ways to describe how one might talk. Fast. Sad. Worried.

She then called on a student to demonstrate, while the rest of the class guessed the adverb. One girl nervously paced along the front of the room, mumbling to herself and putting her hands near her head in an anxious expression. The students threw out a few guesses to get to the answer, preocupadamente, or worried.

“It sounds like an effective program,” said Jane Montes, president of the Illinois Association for Multilingual Multicultural Education.

She said the adverb exercise is a great way to have students interact on the domains of learning language: speaking, writing, listening and reading. Teachers need to focus on making sure students are actually becoming more proficient instead of being bogged down by standardized testing, she said.

This creates an interactive environment and encourages proficiency. When learning, one draws on the experiences obtained through these domains, Montes said.

“When you teach the concepts (in the second language), they just need a label to tack on to what they already know,” Montes said.

Montes said if students do not receive instruction through all four domains, educators would be handicapping the children. It is like learning French for the first time and all instruction is in French, she said.

“You’re not going to learn anything,” Montes said.

At Leal, 312 W. Oregon St., students receive instruction in their native language until fifth grade. This has greater benefits than early exit programs, where less is taught in the native language as students go through school.

“This is not the best system,” Montes said.

Students need a “substantial” amount of time to learn a language, she said.

Students who receive the dual language bilingual education will perform better in middle and high school, said Montes, who is a clinical associate professor in College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Research shows that having a firm ground in basic academic skills in the native language helps acquisition of these same skills in the second language,” Landsman said.

Leal is the only elementary school for Spanish instruction in the Urbana school district. King Elementary provides English as a Second Language, but there is no instruction in any other language. Students receive a questionnaire during registration asking which language is predominantly spoken in the home. There is a mix of students learning both English and Spanish.

At Leal, there are two self-contained classrooms where instruction is exclusively in Spanish except for science and fine arts. One is in kindergarten and the other is in second grade.

Luz Rios, a second grade teacher, started teaching 30 years ago in Colombia. She is preparing her students for third grade, when they will be pulled out of their English classrooms for more specialized help in English and Spanish instruction, she said.

“When we’re with American students, they have to listen to me in English,” Rios said. “They know English well; I don’t know how. Maybe from TV and other classes.”

Maniates teaches some of the students participating in the third through fifth grade “pull-out” Spanish classes, where students leave their normal classroom for a couple hours to learn content, like language arts and social studies, in Spanish. Maniates said research studies like those from Thomas and Collier are her motivation. The studies show that students who receive bilingual instruction perform better than those who only receive English as a Second Language instruction.

“That’s the motivation for why I do what I do,” Maniates said.

Landsman said that this school year, students with limited English knowledge would take two exams to assess their English proficiency, Access and Image.

The No Child Left Behind Act can add even more challenges to educators and student testing, Montes said.

The testing frenzy has caused some teachers to teach for the test, which means teaching to ensure that students can pass the test, even if their proficiency levels do not improve, she said.

“The test becomes the focus and (the teachers) are not thinking about effective instruction,” Montes said.

Landsman called the act “no child left untested.”

The act has improved instruction, but there is one aspect that bothers Montes, she said.

In Title three of the act the phrase “highly qualified teachers” is included. This impacts bilingual teachers because even if they are presently well regarded, if they are missing any coursework, they are no longer a highly qualified teacher, Montes said.

“They have to send a note home saying they are not a highly qualified teacher,” Montes said. “It’s embarrassing.”

“When the bilingual students’ scores are included with everyone else, the teachers might say, ‘It’s the bilingual kids who are bringing the scores down,'” Montes said. “Well, it’s not the kids, it’s how they are being taught.”

“There are many things we need to continue to work on,” Landsman said. “There’s lots of support from home. We need to do a better job of making (parents) feel a part of their children’s education and the program.”