Critical languages refers to less commonly taught languages that the U.S. State Department has deemed necessary for U.S. national defense (Department of Defense 2000). In the current era of globalization and growing interconnectedness, the need for proficient speakers of critical languages has become increasingly urgent. While many foreign…

Under the theoretical underpinnings of language socialization and continua of biliteracy, this ethnographic case study documents how cultural performing arts, as part of extracurricular activities, promote bicultural identity and biliteracy development among Vietnamese American children. The study was set in two transnational contexts: a…

Due to the history of assimilation, power relations, and their sociolinguistic situation, the Sámi languages are categorized as endangered. The position of the Sámi languages in Sámi education is reviewed, and language immersion as a teaching method and as a means of language maintenance is discussed. Sámi language learning is described through…

This qualitative study examines the experiences of Korean-American students, parents and teachers in a newly instituted 50/50 Korean-English dual language immersion programme, where the majority of the students are of Korean descent. Based on home and school observations, as well as interviews with six Korean-American students and their parents…

Documents a Macedonian/Albanian dual-language immersion program in Macedonia and recommends how to structure bilingual programs that build community between language groups where there exists an unequal power structure between the two languages. (Author/VWL)

Looks at early immersion in Irish among children from diverse language backgrounds. Examines the children's frequency of target language use and the effect of the group's linguistic mix on that use. Results show relatively low levels of target language use even by native speakers. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the analysis of six-year-old Finnish-speaking children's second-language acquisition during their first year of Swedish immersion in kindergarten. (JL)

Describes the teaching principles of Catalan as a second language, applied by two teachers in an immersion program. Discusses results of an analysis based on an approach called "teacher thinking." The viewpoints of the teachers have allowed the researchers to define teaching principles of Catalan, or the general strategies that the…

This article addresses the debate on the causes of variability in production of second language functional morphology. It reports a study on article production by first language (L1) Serbian/second language (L2) English learners and compares their behaviour to that of a Turkish learner of English, reported in Goad and White (2004). In particular,…

Discusses an attempt to establish a Dakota-language immersion preschool on an Indian reservation in Minnesota. Outlines the historical experience of the Dakota and contrasts the educational success of the preschool program. Describes the final crisis that led to the resignation of the director and to the program's demise. (Author/VWL)

Examines the importance of parental support for early immersion in the context of a study of Irish-medium preschools. Data were collected from all participants in this early-immersion model, including parents, classroom assistants, and inspectors, in addition to detailed tests of 225 3-year-old children. (Author/VWL)

Examines the relationships between the first (L1), second (L2), and third (L3) language in immersion programs for Russian-speaking students in Israel. Two parallel and similar immersion programs, which were carried out for the same population, but with different target languages (L2 Hebrew and L3 English), are described. Presents tentative…

This study analyzed informal Finnish compositions written by the first pupils in Vaasa (Finland) who were taught Swedish by immersion method and the compositions of their parallel class. Compositions in the fourth and fifth forms were compared. The immersion pupils were taught mostly in Swedish, while their peers in the parallel group were taught…

This paper describes situational Navajo language immersion programs, explaining that situational classrooms recreate a situation in which students need Navajo to communicate and noting that Navajo is a very verb centered language. Situational Navajo takes many of the recurring situations in the school and family setting and makes them the core of…

Reports a study carried out on bilingual adolescents in a school in the Basque Country in which the language of instruction is Basque. Spanish and English are taught starting in Grade 3. Results show that all students are highly competent in Basque and Spanish, but students who use Basque in more domains get the best scores in English. (Author/VWL)