The paper offers a retrospective evaluation of recent evaluative studies of bilingual programs in the Australian state of Victoria, in an attempt to determine how successfully the evaluation process met the dual criteria of external accountability and development. The programs in question were located in primary or secondary government schools and…

Focuses on an early partial immersion program in Australia, in which children study mathematics in French. Testing of childrens' mathematics ability in their first and second languages (L2) is part of a long-term evaluation of the immersion program. Reveals new information about children's reading processes in their L2 and provides insights into…

Focuses on the setting up and evaluation of a primary school German program in Melbourne using modified immersion principles. During the evaluation, this program was compared to a more traditional second-language program and one in which immersion principles operated to a lesser extent. How the evaluation was able to contribute to policy is…

A recently developed primary school German immersion program for a German community is described and its development from Canadian examples is discussed. The program is a composite of immersion, bilingual, and second language models. Early reaction is highly favorable, although the program will not be fully evaluated for a few years. (MSE)

Examines the use of e-mail to facilitate second language acquisition in an immersion education setting, with particular focus on an e-mail exchange between college students of Japanese as a second language in Australia and native speakers in Japan. Suggests that e-mail is a potentially valuable medium in language learning and could be useful in…