Assesses the effect of a program of communicative language teaching on foreign-language (FL) acquisition in the United States. The article describes the frustration of FL teachers and students at students' difficulty in reaching senior-level status and suggests that colleges require FL majors to spend a year in an immersion program in countries…

Illustrates how the pedagogical strategies of French immersion teachers are shaped by various aspects of those teachers' representations of language. (35 references) (Author/CK)

In response to an earlier article on the effectiveness of French immersion, research on immersion, and the best second language teaching approaches for Canadian schools, it is argued that French immersion research has been misinterpreted and misrepresented and that the stated view on second-language teaching is an extreme one. (22 references) (MSE)

Responding to criticism of an article finding fault with research on French immersion instruction, the author of the first article chides researchers for their unwillingness to re-examine their theories in a new context. (24 references) (MSE)

Hadi-Tabassum believes having a separate life context for each language she learned in childhood enabled her to switch easily among five different tongues. She states that the success of dual immersion bilingual programs is largely dependent on whether they immerse students in each of the involved languages separately and help students have a…

Framed by the English language and positioned as a distinct subject, Ojibwe culture and language are often appreciated by students rather than taught for a deeper understanding or fluency, or used as the language of instruction in tribal schools. Ojibwe culture and language have been "added on" to existing school curriculum, an approach that…

This article examines the primary assumption underlying the recent passage of propositions aimed at meeting the need of English language learners (ELLs). The assumption is that English language learners normally need only one year of intensive structured English immersion to learn English well enough to be academically successful in an all-English…

In this paper, we undertake a cross-national comparison of early partial immersion programmes, known as dual language or Modelo B programmes, in the USA and the Basque Country in Spain, respectively. We attempt to make sense of their growth, the expanded social uses of the minority languages, and address seemingly contradictory pedagogical…

Interest in foreign-language instruction in preschool is growing, both among parents and early-childhood educators trying to meet the demand. The interest, though, comes at a time when some districts are scaling back on such programs in the elementary grades in order to spend more time on reading and mathematics--the subjects currently tested to…

It is an underlying principle of Australian Education Review (AER) 54 that active efforts should be made to cultivate the latent bilingual potential within Australia's wider population and that this should be linked to major improvements in the quality of language teaching in schools. A combined approach of this kind will require investment in…

This article presents an autoethnographical account of my foray into Spanish immersion education in Costa Rica as a professor of multilingual education at a university in Canada. This language-learning journey was inspired by curiosity about the growing trend for Internet marketing of second-language learning as a form of tourism, which I label…

Techniques learned in the Goethe-Institut German classroom in Germany, are described and recommended for American use, particularly the immersion approach and emphasis on variety in instructional activities. Other features are also discussed, including: the role of a teacher's willingness to provide multi-sensory activities, creative use of the…

This discussion briefly surveys the development of the immersion method of second language teaching, outlining the central program strategies and characteristics using Curtain's and Pesola's descriptions. An overview of recent research focuses on error correction and feedback studies as an example of pedagogical-methodological evolution in this…

A study of classroom interaction in Ontario's French immersion programs is summarized. Transcripts of classroom interactions were analyzed for teaching practices that tend to decrease or encourage student speech. Results suggest that the use of language in immersion classrooms is not significantly different from language use in regular classes. It…

A fundamental principle of second language acquisition is stated and applied to language teaching. The principle states that learners acquire a second language when they receive comprehensible input in situations where their affective filters are sufficiently low. The theoretical background of this principle consists of five hypotheses: the…