The Coral Way Bilingual Program

Maria Coady beautifully weaves together data to describe the beginnings of the legendary Coral Way Bilingual Program. The story she tells reminds us that the needs of students and families should always shape and reshape educational approaches. A must-read for bilingual educators to understand our history as we work toward an equitable future.

* Tatyana Kleyn, The City College of New York, USA *

Dual language education at Coral Way Elementary was the exemplar that paved the way to the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. In this book, Maria Coady captures the dreams of visionary educational leaders, teachers, parents, and community members whose activist work serves as inspiration for keeping the gift of bi/multilingualism alive for generations to come.

* María E. Fránquiz, University of Texas at Austin, USA *

Coady’s outstanding historical review of the Coral Way bilingual program is a needed resource and an answer to the gap in the literature of understanding our past to “move into the future”.

-- Daniel Garzón, University of Colorado Boulder, USA * Language Policy (2021) 20 *

[This book] is tightly organized, well-written, and crafted with care. Throughout the text Coady shares both her deep respect for those involved in the experiment as well as her profound commitment to advancing bicultural and bilingual education. The book poignantly captures the dedication, creativity, and financial resources needed to embrace and work to advance a ‘language as a resource’ paradigm in the United States in the 1960s and
perhaps even more so now.

-- Kara D. Brown, University of South Carolina, USA * Sociolinguistic Studies, 2021 *

I commend the author on what is an important contribution to the field. The book itself is well-written and it is easy to read [...] it explains the bases for building a bilingual program, it gives solutions to problems that may arise (e.g. period distribution and phases), and it shows the intricate relation with the socioeconomic context. Moreover, it is a reminder that bilingual education brings short and long-term formative outcomes for students.

-- Marina Cuartero, University of Florida, USA * LINGUIST List 31.2517 *

Coady’s examination of the bilingual program at Coral Way serves as a reminder to those researching the field today to zoom out to situate their work within the bigger picture when examining DLBE and to root our understanding of where we are now, where we want to go, in where we first began.

-- Jessica Mitchell-McCollough, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA * Spanish as a Heritage Language Vol. 1 No. 1, 20