Reviews the literature to determine the importance of immersion in language restoration or preservation. Defines immersion and its goals, and discusses effects on students' English cognitive ability. Examines the success of Indian nations in retaining/restoring Native languages and concludes that, if nothing is done, additional Native languages…

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…

Describes a Hawaiian language immersion program classroom (a second- and third-grade combination classroom) that acknowledges both the language and culture of students while supporting the development of a culturally grounded community of learners. Notes historical information, discusses ownership and authenticity, and describes aspects of…

Highlights the sixth Command Language Program Manager seminar, hosted by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, which focused on language training opportunities that are available now as well as those that will be in the future. New initiatives discussed include an Arabic in Action course, Web-based language training, training…

Describes the German partial immersion program at St. Peters Lutheran College in Brisbane, Australia. The study confirms that content-based partial immersion teaching produces effective, communicative production in the language of immersion, and confident, competent language speakers even when the learners are quite young. (Author/VWL)

Reports the use of students' native language by teachers in the foreign language classroom. The project was undertaken by French teachers in Australia. The teachers' aim was to investigate the use of the native language in a context that actively promotes an immersion approach to foreign language teaching (Author/VWL)

Provides information on the educational system in the Basque Country and insight into the Basque Country and Basque language and the reverse language shift efforts made to date. Suggests that the effects of bilingualism and immersion programs are beneficial in the Basque context. (Author/VWL)

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)

Across Indian Country, people can hear voices speaking ancient words, in a Cochiti extended family in New Mexico, a Navajo community school on the Arizona desert, a Native Hawaiian kindergarten, a Salish/Kootenai summertime ceremony, on the North Dakota plains, and in a Blackfeet math classroom in Montana. Unlike other language instruction…

This 2-year study examined the effects of early second language exposure on phonological awareness skills. Syllable, onset-rime and phoneme awareness skills of 72 anglophone children attending English or French immersion programs in primary and grade 1 were investigated. Three-way mixed ANOVAS revealed the following effects and interactions. In…

This article discusses the benefits of hosting a German Immersion Day for area high school students on college campuses. Not only does an immersion experience benefit the students and teachers who participate, but it also serves to attract new students of German to the college and helps to create smoother articulation between high school and…

A long-time detractor of immersion education has been the concern that a substantial proportion of teaching in and about a language other than English might potentially lead to irreparable damage to immersion students' development in English and, hence, their ability to function in an English-dominant society. The assessment in this article,…

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,…

An experimental study was conducted comparing the effects of dual language, or two-way immersion (TWI) and monolingual English immersion (EI) preschool education programs on children's learning. Three-and four-year old children were randomly assigned by lottery to either a newly established TWI Spanish/English program or a monolingual English…

This paper explores Fred Genesee's Classroom Based Assessment (CBA) as an alternative model for assessing instruction as it affects students' learning in an immersion program. CBA collects information on language while instruction and other activities are taking place, allowing teachers the flexibility to alter teaching strategies to be more…