Perspectives on the Global Landscape of Immersion Education

Symposium organized by

Ofelia Wade, Utah State Office of Education

The eminent impact of globalization in our societies and economies has prompted a common international urgency to build highly competent multi-lingual workforces. However, educational and socio-political context, public policy and availability of resources shape the landscape of language immersion education around the world, resulting in a variety of program designs and innovative implementation and sustainability efforts.

In an effort to promote cross-fertilization of efforts, the panelists in this symposium will discuss how their countries have navigated the internal and external challenges pertaining to program design, as well as implementation and sustainability in furthering language immersion education.

The Landscape of Swedish immersion education in Finland

Karita Mård-Miettinen & Siv Björklund, University of Vaasa

In 1987 one-way immersion was introduced in the officially bilingual country of Finland. Immersion education was offered to monolingual Finnish-speaking majority children in the other national language of the country, Swedish. In Finland, Swedish immersion has a multilingual orientation where several languages are introduced from early age on within the programme. In our paper we will address immersion education in Finland in the light of the educational and sociopolitical context that currently characterize Finnish society. As to educational context, we discuss the role of immersion in national education policy documents (e.g. National Core Curriculum, Strategy of the National Languages) and reflect Swedish immersion education in relation to other educational approaches (e.g. CLIL education in English). Sociopolitically our focus is on the challenges the changing demographics (from a bilingual to a multilingual country) in Finland place on immersion education traditionally targeting monolingual Finnish-speaking children.

Current national education policies and immersion education in Ireland

Pádraig Ó Duibhir, Dublin City University

One of the effects of globalization in Ireland has been the increased dominance of the English language. The vitality of Irish-speaking heartland areas continues to diminish. Efforts to strengthen the status of Irish as a minority language have become more important but more challenging in this context.

This contribution will report current national education policies as they affect immersion education in Ireland. It will draw on data from a nationwide survey in immersion schools to describe current successes and challenges from the perspectives of students, parents and school principals. Among the themes discussed will be; parent satisfaction with immersion education, restrictions in the expansion of immersion education, level of exposure to Irish for students outside the school context, continuity from primary to post-primary immersion education, the challenges and opportunities in relation to immersion teacher education.

Immersion Models in Estonia as a Means to Address Linguistic and Cultural Requests of the Society

Karin Piirsalu & Anna Golubeva, Innove Foundation

The Estonian one-way immersion model was launched in 1998 in order to improve the current situation with Estonian language teaching in the Russian-medium school. With the pilot forms proving that the model worked, the next step was extending the language immersion model to the Russian-medium preschool. Now preschool immersion is implemented through two models – the total immersion (launched in 2002) and partial immersion (launched in 2008).

Till 2013 the main focus of Estonian education system in the area of early multilingualism was mostly on Russian-speaking children who start learning Estonian as a second language at the age of three. Seeing the need to offer similar possibilities to Estonian-speaking children as well as taking into consideration Estonian-speaking parents’ growing interest to the Russian language and its learning, at the end of 2012 the Ministry of Education and Research made a decision to launch the two-way (Estonian-Russian) language immersion program.

Challenges and Opportunities for Immersion Education in Canada

Joseph Dicks, University of New Brunswick

Immersion education in Canada was conceived of over 50 years ago when a group of anglophone parents in St. Lambert, Quebec consulted with researchers at McGill University to improve the teaching of French in English language schools. This initiative coincided with the 1965 report of a national royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism recommending that English and French be declared official languages of Canada.

The current situation regarding immersion education in Canada continues to reflect policy and practices related to official bilingualism and multilingualism. French is still by far the most common immersion language in the country. However, as Canada’s multicultural population increases, and as language endangerment in indigenous communities grows, so too does the need for immersion programs in those languages.

Immersion education and research on immersion education in Canada have evolved considerably since its inception. This presentation will explore challenges and opportunities related to the current situation and will conclude with recommendations for research and program development.

A Focused Lens on Brazil's Language Immersion Education

Lyle French, Avenues - The World School

This presentation will lay out the facts and figures that reveal the current language immersion trends in Brazil including the dichotomy between favorable indigenous rights and the realities of indigenous language education. Furthermore, this presentation will explain the new massive federal reform initiative in elementary high school education through the roll out of a new national curriculum(Base Nacional Comum Curricular) and will explore its potential impact on the current landscape of language immersion education.

Immersion Education in the US

Myriam Met, DLI Consultant

Diverse purposes have motivated an explosive growth of programs. These purposes range from parent demands for rigorous and rich learning opportunities for students, to states looking to establish global partnerships, to a national government effort to ensure a globally competent population that can meet the economic and political priorities of the 21^st century.

The variety of purposes that has prompted rapid expansion of immersion has been reflected in the populations of students served, the range of languages offered, and the modified approaches to the allocation of instructional time across two languages.

Program expectations driven by national policies and priorities are contributing to the challenges of program expansion. Increased rigor in national standards has renewed efforts to ensure that students develop the high levels of oral and written language proficiency for learning academic content. These proficiencies, in turn, ensure that programs are likely to fulfill the promise of immersion education.

A Collaborative Approach to Meeting the Challenges of Promoting Language Immersion Education in Spain

Marta Walliser, University of Alcalá

Spain has a long and well-documented history of successful efforts to promote language immersion education. These efforts which in the past have been driven by regional priorities are now becoming a national initiative in response to globalization. Collaboration between schools and higher educational insttitutions have become a successful model for expanding and supporting the implementation of bilingual programs in the Madrid area.