Change consent<\/button>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe origin of immersion bilingual education<\/strong><\/p>\nModern immersion bilingual education, which is often seen as the most effective form of second language learning in an institutional setting, originated in Canada in the 1960s. In Qu\u00e9bec, in an area where French is the dominant language, some parents of the English-speaking minority wanted their children to become proficient in the majority language, French.<\/p>\n
As a result, an experimental kindergarten was set up in St. Lambert, a suburb of Montreal, in 1965. The experiment pursued three main goals:
All three goals were achieved to a large extent, and as a result of the well-researched success of the early immersion programmes, the idea spread to other parts of Canada, to the U.S. and to many other parts of the world, including Europe. The approach has continued to attract support since it was developed more than 50 years ago. In Europe, immersion programmes were initially implemented, above all, in Scandinavia, in Spain and France, but can nowadays be found in most countries.<\/p>\n
Immersion bilingual education can fulfill a number of different purposes. It may be used to promote the learning of<\/p>\n
\na) an indigenous language to keep the language alive (e.g. Welsh in Wales or Hawaiian in Hawai\u2018i)<\/li>\n b) a minority language in a bilingual country (e.g. French for English-speaking children in French-speaking regions in Canada)<\/li>\n c) a majority language by an ethnic minority group (e.g. Estonian for Russian speaking children in Estonia)<\/li>\n d) an international language (e.g. English in Germany or Switzerland)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nApart from the highly significant status of the second language, immersion programmes can differ with respect to several features. Potential differences may be the result of the following factors, for example:<\/p>\n
\nthe learner\u2019s age or grade at which immersion is introduced (Is immersion introduced at an early or at a later stage?),<\/li>\n the duration of immersion (Is immersion continued after elementary school, for example?),<\/li>\n the intensity of immersion and the balance between both languages (Is it a matter of \u2018total\u2019 immersion or just \u2018partial\u2019 immersion?),<\/li>\n the amount of language support given to learners, especially in the beginning,<\/li>\n the subjects which are taught in each language, and<\/li>\n the materials and resources provided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nDespite these potential differences, immersion programmes also appear to share many features.
Core features of immersion programmes<\/strong><\/p>\n\nThe immersion language is the medium of instruction.<\/li>\n The immersion curriculum is the same as the local first language curriculum.<\/li>\n The school supports development in all the child\u2019s languages.<\/li>\n Additive bilingualism occurs.<\/li>\n Exposure to the immersion language is largely confined to the classroom.<\/li>\n Students enter with similar (limited or nonexistent) levels of proficiency in the immersion language.<\/li>\n All the teachers are bilingual.<\/li>\n The classroom culture needs to recognize the cultures of the diverse language communities to which the students belong, including immigrant communities.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nIn the last few decades many different models of immersion bilingual education have been\u00a0 developed \u2013 often even within the same country \u2013 as a result of different contexts, needs, political situations and different educational frameworks. Nevertheless, immersion bilingual education has proved to be so effective that this form of language learning is likely to attract more and more support in Europe and worldwide.<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/p>\n
Johnson, Robert K. & Swain, Merrill (1997): \u201cImmersion Education: A Category within Bilingual Education\u201d. In: K. Johnson & M. Swain (eds.): Immersion Education: International Perspectives<\/em>. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 6-8.<\/p>\nReading (Part II)<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\nContent and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Like immersion, Content and Language Integrated (CLIL) is also considered to be a \u2018strong\u2019 form of bilingual education. Both approaches are based on the fact that foreign languages are best learnt \u2018naturally\u2019 and implicitly, i.e. by focussing on the content which is transmitted through language and not so much on the language itself, i.e. its forms and structures, which is often rather associated with traditional foreign language teaching. <\/span><\/p>\nIn contrast to immersion, however, CLIL is usually found at \u2018regular\u2019 state schools and exposure time to the second language is typically more restricted than in an immersion class. In CLIL classrooms normally only a few subjects are taught in the second language whereas in an immersion most subjects are taught \u2013 in some cases almost exclusively \u2013 in the target language.<\/span><\/p>\nIn the past it was quite common for CLIL classes to be conducted more or less in the same way as traditional foreign language classes. The content of the typical foreign language was simply replaced by content related to specific subjects (e.g. in History or Geography) while the teaching methodology was adopted from foreign language teaching. This situation has changed considerably in recent years and many teachers and educationalists nowadays insist that an independent CLIL methodology should be developed (Wolff 2011: 556). The following aspects are concerned with some methodological differences between both areas: <\/span><\/p>\na) Skills <\/span><\/p>\nIn contrast to traditional foreign language teaching, in which oral skills are emphasised, Content and language integrated learning also focuses very much on written skills since learners often have to deal with written materials in their content subjects and may also have to document their results at a very early stage.<\/span><\/p>\nb) Teaching subject-related terminology<\/span><\/p>\nCummins (1987) made a useful distinction between \u201cBasic Interpersonal Communicative Skills\u201d (BICS) and \u201cCognitive Academic Language Proficiency\u201d (CALP). Foreign language teaching is typically associated with BICS, i.e. words and phrases which are often found in everyday speech and everyday topics like hobbies, pets, directions, means of transport etc. While the CLIL classroom may also provide learners with language related to BICS, it also equips them with special terminology and phrases on an academic level (i.e. CALP). In order to understand or produce CLIL texts (e.g. on topics such as industrialization, electric circuits or the life-cycle of a butterfly), more abstract and less frequently used vocabulary is needed.<\/span><\/p>\nIt is often believed that the most important aspect of content-based lessons is to provide learners with long vocabulary lists with specific terminology related to a specific content subject (e.g. parts of the human body, weather phenomena) to facilitate the comprehension of texts. While this lexical dimension remains an important issue, it is also seen as crucial to to provide them with general academic skills and knowledge about relevant text genres (e.g. manuals or reports) in their content subject. <\/span><\/p>\nc) Discourse skills<\/span><\/p>\nAnother aspect related to Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is the development of discourse skills when talking or writing about subject-specific topics. It is crucial that learners become familiar with so called \u201coperators\u201d such as \u201cidentifying\u201d, \u201cclassifying\u201d, \u201cdefining\u201d, \u201cexplaining\u201d, \u201cdescribing\u201d, \u201ccomparing\u201d or \u201cevaluating\u201d. In addition, there are several more specific operators like \u201cdescribing experiments\u201d or \u201cexplaining graphs, tables or diagrams\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nd) Language in the classroom<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nIn contrast to traditional foreign language teaching (or to immersion classes), where the foreign language is used as frequently as possible, perhaps even almost exclusively, the learners\u2019 native language may play a more significant role in a CLIL classroom. This is partly due to the fact that it is essential that academic language competence is built up in both languages, but it might also be useful to analyse certain topics from different perspectives. For example, in a History CLIL lesson about WW I it might be interesting to read texts written in different languages (e.g. German, French or English) in order to compare the different perspectives. As far as the learners\u2019 output is concerned, there is often a relatively great tolerance for code-switching in the classroom since the focus is, above all, on content and on conveying messages. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\nReferences:<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\nCoyle, Do, Hood, Philip & Marsh, David (2010): CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning<\/i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Cummins, Jim (1987): \u201cBilingualism, language proficiency and metalinguistic development\u201d. In: Homel, Peter, Palij, Michael & Aaronson, Doris (eds.): Childhood Bilingualism: Aspects of Linguistic, Cognitive and Social Development.<\/i> Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 57-73.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Wolff, Dieter (2011): \u201cContent and Language Integrated Learning\u201d. In: Knapp, Karlfried & Seidlhofer, Barbara (eds.): Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning.<\/i> Mouton De Gruyter: Berlin\/New York, 545-572. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Watch the following three videos where different schools present their immersion schools.
Video No. 1:\u00a0<\/strong>French Immersion Programme (Edmonton Public School, Canada)<\/strong><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TB1i_yk3zpo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>
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Change consent<\/button>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/strong><\/p>\nVideo No. 2: Navajo children in native language immersion school<\/strong> (Length: 3:01)<\/p>\n<\/p>
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Change consent<\/button>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTask 2:
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Change consent<\/button>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nVideo No. 3: Chinese Immersion (elementary school in the US)<\/strong><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lY-E7a9SMes<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>
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Change consent<\/button>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTask 3:<\/strong><\/p>\n
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Change consent<\/button>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nWeek 5 Part 2 will help you to\u00a0become familiar with key concepts of language immersion and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL); to understand the main features and objectives of language immersion in schools. To reach these goals you are …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/multilingual\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\u00a0Video<\/h4>\n