TExES Bilingual Education Supplemental (164)
TExES Bilingual Education Supplemental (164) is a trademark of its owner, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse Test Treasure Publication or TTP Prep.
TExES Bilingual Education Supplemental (164) is a trademark of its owner, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse Test Treasure Publication or TTP Prep.
10 sample questions for the TExES Bilingual Education Supplemental (164), with the correct answer and an explanation for each. No account needed. Try each one before you open the answer.
Sections covered on the exam: Foundations of Bilingual Education and the Learning Environment (Competency 001), First- and Second-Language Acquisition (Competency 002), L1 Literacy and Biliteracy (Competency 003), Content-Area Instruction in L1 and L2 (Competency 004).
Question 1 · Foundations of Bilingual Education and the Learning Environment (Competency 001)
Answer: C. a state law banning foreign-language teaching to young children violated the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment
Meyer v. Nebraska struck down a state law that prohibited teaching young children in a language other than English, finding it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's liberty guarantee. The meaningful-participation holding belongs to Lau v. Nichols, the immigration-status holding to Plyler v. Doe, and the evaluation requirement to Castaneda v. Pickard.
Question 2 · Foundations of Bilingual Education and the Learning Environment (Competency 001)
Amina, a ten-year-old who recently arrived as a refugee, enrolls in fifth grade. She speaks Arabic and no English. During her first week, she sits quietly, watches classmates closely, and becomes visibly anxious when the routine changes unexpectedly.
Answer: B. Establish predictable routines, pair her with a supportive peer, and use visuals to lower her anxiety
A newcomer's affective needs come first: predictable routines, a welcoming peer buddy (ideally one who speaks Arabic) and visual supports reduce anxiety and lower the affective filter. A silent period is normal at this stage, so forcing English output or treating silence as a disorder is inappropriate, and English textbooks are not comprehensible to her family yet.
Question 3 · First- and Second-Language Acquisition (Competency 002)
Mr. Salas, a parent volunteer, came to Texas as an adult many years ago. He reads English newspapers and runs a business, yet he still says 'She have a meeting' and 'He don't know' despite frequent correction from his children.
Answer: D. fossilization, in which some interlanguage forms stop developing
Selinker used fossilization for interlanguage features that stop changing even with plentiful input and correction, which is common among adult learners. Mr. Salas has ample English exposure, so an input gap does not explain the pattern. He is speaking, not silent, and he is not alternating languages.
Question 4 · L1 Literacy and Biliteracy (Competency 003)
Results for Marisol, grade 3, who has received Spanish literacy instruction since kindergarten:
| Measure | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Phonological awareness | At benchmark | At benchmark |
| Decoding real words | At benchmark | Below benchmark |
| Oral vocabulary | Above benchmark | Well below benchmark |
| Reading comprehension | At benchmark | Well below benchmark |
Answer: C. Her low English scores mainly reflect developing English proficiency, not a reading disability
Marisol reads at benchmark in Spanish, so her underlying reading processes are intact; her English scores drop most in vocabulary and comprehension, which points to English language proficiency. A reading disability would show up in both languages, and stopping Spanish reading would remove the strength her English reading can build on.
Question 5 · Content-Area Instruction in L1 and L2 (Competency 004)
A fifth-grade bilingual teacher is finishing a unit on the parts of a plant and their functions. Marisol, a newcomer at the beginning level of English proficiency, participated eagerly in all of the hands-on investigations. On the unit test, which is written entirely in English and asks for short written explanations, she left most items blank.
Answer: D. Have her label a plant diagram and explain each part's job orally in Spanish or with gestures
Letting Marisol label a diagram and explain functions in Spanish or with gestures separates her science knowledge from her English writing ability. Retesting in English after drills still measures English proficiency, and recording the blank test confuses limited English with limited content knowledge.
Question 6 · Foundations of Bilingual Education and the Learning Environment (Competency 001)
A district registrar asks what Plyler v. Doe, a U.S. Supreme Court case, means for enrollment practices.
I. The district may not deny enrollment to children because they are undocumented.
II. The district may not require proof of immigration status as a condition of enrollment.
III. The district may charge tuition to children who cannot prove lawful residence in the country.
Answer: A. I and II only
Plyler v. Doe struck down a Texas law that denied funding for the education of undocumented children, holding that states may not deny them a free public education. Districts therefore may not deny enrollment, require immigration documents, or charge tuition based on immigration status, which would discourage enrollment just as a denial would.
Question 7 · Foundations of Bilingual Education and the Learning Environment (Competency 001)
Answer: C. European Union policy encourages citizens to learn two languages beyond their mother tongue.
European Union language policy encourages every citizen to learn two languages beyond the mother tongue, and many education systems around the world teach in or through more than one language. These examples show multilingualism as a normal educational goal rather than a special case, which supports additive bilingual programs.
Question 8 · First- and Second-Language Acquisition (Competency 002)
A teacher says, 'I taught third-person -s (she walks) early in the year, and we practiced it often. My students still say she walk in conversation. Yet they began using -ing and plural -s correctly early on, with little teaching.'
Answer: C. Krashen's natural order hypothesis
The natural order hypothesis holds that grammatical morphemes are acquired in a predictable sequence regardless of the order in which they are taught: -ing and plural -s come early, and third-person -s comes late. Teaching a late-acquired form early does not change the sequence. The input and affective filter hypotheses address conditions for acquisition, not its order.
Question 9 · L1 Literacy and Biliteracy (Competency 003)
Ms. Garza's first-grade class learns to read Spanish by memorizing whole sentences and words from labeled pictures and class charts. By midyear, students read the charts fluently but cannot read new words such as pelota when they appear in an unfamiliar book.
Answer: B. Add systematic syllable and letter-sound instruction that draws on the words students know
A purely global, whole-word approach builds a memorized vocabulary but not the decoding skills needed for new words; analyzing known words into syllables and sounds gives students a way to read pelota. Adding more memorized words or relying on picture guessing keeps the same weakness, and switching to English lists does not teach Spanish decoding.
Question 10 · Content-Area Instruction in L1 and L2 (Competency 004)
A dual language teacher grades a seventh-grade math project in which students design a scale model of a park and explain their scale in writing. Some emergent bilingual students compute the scale correctly but write explanations with many grammar errors.
Answer: C. An analytic rubric with separate rows for math accuracy and for language use
Separate analytic criteria let the teacher credit correct math reasoning while giving targeted feedback on language. A single holistic score blends the two, so language errors can hide strong content understanding, and a neatness checklist measures neither.
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