This article reports a study of parental motivation, attitudes, support, and commitment for the second year of the two-way immersion (TWI) program at an elementary school in San Bernardino, California. Findings include the unique aspects of border communities; similarities and differences between Spanish-language and English-language participants;…

A group of new studies is providing fresh evidence of what many researchers have been saying all along: English immersion has more political appeal than educational merit. Dr. Amy Merickel, co-author of "Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners K-12," says it is not possible given the data…

Focuses on the Sisseton Wahpeton Community College, a "tribal college" of the Dakota Indians in Sisseton, South Dakota. Comments from college president William Harjo LoneFight regarding the philosophy of the institution and its integration of the Dakota language and tribal cultural values. Looks at various programs and institutions that…

The Northern Territory's bilingual education programmes, in which local Australian Aboriginal languages and English were used side by side in a minority of Aboriginal primary schools in remote northern Australia, came into being in 1973 under the broader federal government policy imprimatur of "self-determination" for Indigenous…

In this paper, I discuss current interest in educational reform in Puerto Rico, the need for better and more appropriate assessment tools, the growing realisation in the USA that two-way bilingual programmes can provide an effective vehicle for fostering the development of bilingual proficiency, bicultural competence and subject-matter knowledge…

During the first half of the twentieth century in British Columbia, French language was considered a school subject to be taught as any other using formal classical approaches. Generally, no specific provincial or local policies existed to guide how French was taught and learned. By 1981, however, British Columbia had developed explicit language…

Plunges represent a type of education that is experiential, meaningful, interesting, challenging, confidence-building, growth-inducing and rewarding for most students. They represent a significant means towards students' greater understanding and acceptance of others, as well as of enhancing self-awareness; they thus have great potential as a…

To investigate the role of context in reading development, a comparison of reading comprehension and processes was conducted between learners of Japanese as a second language in study abroad (SA; n = 15) and intensive domestic (in the United States) immersion (IM; n = 15) contexts. A significant difference was found between contexts in pretest to…

This study acoustically analyzed the production of single and geminate stops in Japanese by English-speaking children (N = 19) at three different grade levels in a Japanese immersion program. Results show that both their singletons and geminates were significantly longer than those of Japanese monolinguals and the bilinguals' immersion teachers,…

Recent research by Swain (2000a, 2000b, 1998, 1995), Swain and Lapkin (2001, 1998, 1995) and Kowal and Swain (1997, 1994) has examined the role of collaborative tasks in focusing immersion students' attention on the need for explicit knowledge of grammatical forms and lexical items in the production (especially written) of French texts. This is…

This article investigates the process of change with reference to Chinese lecturers of English taking part in a one-month intensive teacher training programme. The programme was initiated in response to a government directive that 20% of all university courses in Chinese national universities should be taught in English. The article sets the…

Colleges and universities are presented with the problem of preparing teachers for diverse classrooms on a daily basis. The lack of preparation for teaching in urban settings is one problem. This article presents the Urban Semester Program. This is an immersion program for junior level students. In this immersion experience, participants take a…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a supplemental peer-mediated reading program on reading achievement of first graders (N = 76) in a two-way bilingual immersion (TWBI) program. Nearly 80% of students were Hispanic; of these, 24 were identified as English language learners (ELLs). Classrooms were randomly assigned to…

The purpose of this manual, which accompanies a video program, is to provide an overview of four immersion teacher tasks for elementary foreign language teachers who are, or soon will be, teaching in a total or partial immersion classroom. Part of a series of video programs, this manual is intended to provide basic information, models, and…

The purpose of this manual, which accompanies a video program, is to provide general background information for foreign language teachers who are, or soon will be, teaching in total, partial, or two-way immersion classrooms. Part of a series of video programs, this manual highlights special considerations in teaching language arts in kindergarten…