Compares two different types of bilingual education programs--the Canadian immersion programs, designed primarily for foreign language enrichment, and the European School bilingual education program, designed primarily for language maintenance. Achievement scores for both approaches were comparable, pointing to the importance of environment and…

Offers immersion classroom data focusing on the use of collaborative tasks related to the content to be learned that draw learners attention to formal properties of French. Such tasks provide both oral practice and lead to more accurate language use. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the uses of the first language (L1) made by 22 pairs of Grade 8 French immersion students as they complete one of two different tasks: a dictogloss and a jigsaw. The outcome of each task is a story written by each pair. Proposes a coding scheme for the uses made of the (L1) and reports on an exploratory analysis intended to describe…

Examines a subset of collaborative dialogues that occurred in a a multistage task where Canadian Grade 7 French immersion students worked together in pairs. Each pair wrote a story, noticed differences between their text and a reformulator's revision, and reflected on their noticing. Traces development of the target language (French), with…

A comparison of the French proficiency of bilingual and monolingual native English, Italian, or non-Romance language speaking eighth graders in an Ontario bilingual program found that the bilingual students generally performed better than monolingual students on cloze procedure tests and story telling tasks. (40 references) (Author/CB)

The fact that early immersion in a second language has led to bilingualism and academic success among majority language children has been used as an argument against mother tongue instruction for minority language children. However, for minority language children, immersion in a second language has often led to language loss and academic failure.…

Examined Grade 8 French immersion students use and accuracy of pronominal verbs within one of two tasks--jigsaw or dictogloss--while working in pairs. Two groups of students viewed a videotaped mini-lesson on pronominal verbs, while another two did not. Found that the mini-lesson had a significant impact on students' use of pronominal verbs in…

Examined the ability of Grade 8 intermediate and advanced learners of French to collaboratively complete a text reconstruction task, focusing on the students' discussion of the form of the message they were constructing. Results indicated that students gained awareness of gaps in their existing knowledge and links between the form, function, and…

This paper cites observational and interview evidence indicating that language immersion students in the United States and Canada increasingly avoid using their second language in peer interactions as they move into higher primary grade levels. Implications for immersion programs and teachers are discussed. (32 references) (MDM)

A review of the research on Canadian immersion programs supports two notions regarding second language learning: (1) older learners may have as much learning success as younger learners, and in a shorter time period; and (2) integration of content teaching and language teaching is paramount in effective second language instruction. (29 references)…