Seventh International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education

Strand I: Pedagogy & Assessment

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Despite the popularity of immersion/bilingual programs across the globe, the pedagogical issue of language and content integration remains a conundrum. While a few dedicated curricular planning models have recently been developed, immersion teachers’ (ITs) understandings of how to efficiently blend content and language instructional aims remains lacking. This paper reports on two studies conducted in the Canadian and Irish contexts, which utilised the Integration pedagogical content knowledge (I-PCK) framework (Troyan, Cammarata, & Martel, 2017, an analytical tool designed to explore the nature of ITs’ knowledge in relation to the work of integration. Findings reveal the presence of knowledge lacks in areas critical to integration particularly in regard to language and literacy instruction. This presentation will describe identified issues and discuss the potential of the I-PCK to help identify key areas for optimization through targeted professional development interventions.