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or accidental was not clear. She was always friendly and eager to
help the teachers and other students in Spanish.
Looking at other examples of individual and group behavior pro
vides insights into language acquisition and use. Miguel, the student
who was described by the teachers and administrators as the potential
lawyer because he talked so much in English, often served as a
translator for teachers and other students. He frequently volunteered
to run errands and admitted that he enjoyed showing off how much English
he had learned. He was not chosen as one of the six low English
achievers because of his oral fluency. When administered the LAS
Story Retelling subsection in Spanish, he requested to hear the story
over because he said he could not remember anything, even when he
looked at the accompanying pictures. At the risk of unstandardizing
the administration of the test, I replayed the story for him because
I wanted to know what Miguel might remember. Even after listening
to the story a second time he could only provide a single short sentence
of the story. Miguel seldom completed any written classwork and he
ranked at the bottom of the group in English and Spanish.
Hildi, the girl who smiled at the TV camera but did not speak,
was the student who was eliminated by the bilingual teachers because
they felt she was making progress in English. Their opinion was based,
in part, on her written work. Her rank on total English achievement
was near the top of the low group and was evidence that she was
learning written skills. If only written measures had been used for
the six students designated as being in the low group, only two of the
six would have been chosen.