An investigation was undertaken to assess student attitudes toward learning and using French and their reasons for studying it. It was felt that a more thorough investigation of these issues might help to broaden knowledge of some of the non-educational, social consequences of immersion programs. English-speaking students in sixth and eleventh…

Reviews research findings as they relate to the acquisition of reading skills (in the first and second language) by majority-group school children participating in early immersion programs. (Author)

Describes immersion programs in the United States and Canada and reviews results of evaluative research pertaining to them. Discusses findings with respect to students' native-language development, academic achievement, and second language proficiency. Also discusses the suitability of immersion for students with distinctive, potentially…

Examines the acquisition of tense and agreement by L2 learners of French. Interviews were conducted with English-speaking children acquiring French as a second language and with grade-matched native French-speaker controls. Results revealed that items encoding agreement emerged before items encoding tense, suggesting that the abstract grammatical…

Reports the results of a comparative evaluation of an early total immersion program, a delayed immersion program, and an all French program for English-speaking language majority students in Montreal, Canada. (33 references) (Author/OD)

Examined whether there is an earlier developmental stage than 2 years of age when bilingual children do not use their languages in pragmatically differentiated ways. Analyses of recordings of four French-English bilingual children in Canada during free play sessions with their mothers and fathers suggest a stage very early in development when…

English-speaking Canadian students were asked why they were learning French and why French-speaking Canadians wanted them to learn it, and the results were compared with their language proficiency and use. Students' expectations of motivational support from the French-Canadian community was a significant and sometimes unique predictor of…

Identifies differences between bilingual programs for minority language children and second-language immersion programs for majority language children. Examines points of mutual relevance between approaches. Discusses exemplary characteristics of effective second-language learning environments: integration of language and academic instruction,…

Develops criteria to establish whether a second language (L2) speaker has achieved native-like proficiency. The study compares the performance of near-native speakers of English, non-native speakers, and controls on two tasks designed to tap aspects of Universal Grammar claimed to be subject to critical period effects. Findings reveal that…

In this special section, various authors (in separate articles) discuss the new face of school segregation; socioeconomic integration--a plan to mix poor and middle-class students; and ways to bridge the minority achievement gap, teach linguistically diverse students, and identify and nurture the gifted poor. (MLH)

A program of partial (half-day) French immersion in the Cincinnati Public Schools was evaluated in the kindergarten year. The English and French language development of participating native English-speaking children from both working class and middle class backgrounds was assessed. The results indicated that (1) the pupils who spent half of their…