What is Immersion Education? Immersion education means that at least 50% of instruction is delivered in a child's second language. It is content based and content driven, meaning the main objective is that the children learn the content, whether it be math, science, social studies or language arts. The fact that children learn the target language is simply the result of it being the medium through which the content is taught.
What are the benefits? * A greater measure of cognitive flexibility and creative (divergent) thinking skills * Development of more intense listening skills * Ability to transfer skills into many curriculum areas * Increased development in vocabulary * Naturally acquiring a foreign language * Development of cultural awareness and tolerance (through exposure to the fact that diverse people of the world speak different languages and learning a foreign language can connect us to the broader world around us)
How are things taught? While students can 'naturally' acquire a foreign language in an Immersion program, teachers and parents must ensure that students attain a sufficient base of the target language. Therefore, teachers incorporate language instruction in the content areas. This is done by determining the language vocabulary and structures that are necessary to succeed in a given lesson, and then explicitly teaching these key words and structures prior to the lesson. Once English is introduced in the upper elementary grades, teachers must also ensure that students transfer skills learned in the target language to their dominant language. Some students do this automatically while some students need explicit teaching in order to transfer key concepts they have learned from one language to the other. At designated times in the classroom and at home students should see the languages side by side to compare and contrast language structures and content vocabulary. For example, in second grade students will be learning about plants in Spanish. To support the important big ideas within this science unit, students can read English texts on the life cycle of a plant at home and discuss connections between concepts they see in English with the same concepts they have learned in Spanish. They can also make a list of cognates (words that sound alike in two different languages) between the English and Spanish words used to describe plants.