Dual Language Instructional Design for Educating Recent Immigrant Secondary Students on the Texas-Mexico Border

The Literacy Program for Recent Immigrant Students is an English and Spanish program of instruction for recently immigrated secondary school students from Mexico to a south Texas school district. The major feature of this program is its design. Specifically, the design goes beyond state bilingual and English as a second language [ESL] instructional requirements, and has features not typical in other secondary ESL programs. These features include (a) the integration of language and content areas, (b) the use of two languages, Spanish and English, (c) the implementation of literacy strategies typically in elementary programs, (d) the design of instruction to accommodate two levels of Spanish literacy, prior schooling experiences and no English, (e) staff composition of Texas certified teachers and profesoras from Mexico teaming to provide bilingual instruction, and (f) a comprehensive plan for staff development. In addition to a description of the design, critical comments and insights are included to present successes of the program and areas needing improvement. Finally, questions are posed to stimulate thinking about how this design might be replicated.