Seventh International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education

Symposia Session

Spanish, Chinese, Japanese

As immersion students move into middle and high school, the range of language proficiency levels among students varies greatly and students’ cognitive development tends to outpace the students immersion language development.  Engaging adolescents in high level critical thinking with authentic texts and meaningful instructional activities is essential to fostering motivated learners in the secondary immersion classroom. Participants in this workshop will learn how secondary immersion teachers employing an instructional approach predicated on social cultural learning theory and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development can develop curriculum units with high rigor and high scaffolds that facilitates better academic language development and cognitive engagement.   Examples will be provided in Spanish, Chinese and and Japanese.