La Palabra Justa : 9780984731725 : 02 Apr 2014 : Language proficiency is multidimensional. While conversational skills are essential for social interaction, they are insufficient for most academic purposes. To be successful, teachers and students must acquire a firm and accurate command of subject-area vocabulary. Even though a growing number of Americans speak Spanish at home, the United States has a severe shortage of professionals with fully developed academic skills in Spanish. This poses a special challenge for bilingual classrooms. Educators must be able to identify la palabra justa - the right word - in preparing or presenting a lesson, especially when providing content instruction and second-language input at the same time. Recognizing an acute need, the editors of this volume brought together an international team of language teachers, teacher educators, and other bilingual professionals to create an English-Spanish / Espa