Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop introduces participants to a content-based curricular framework designed to help immersion teachers concurrently target the teaching of content, advanced literacy skills, and academic language. The framework acts as a scaffold to facilitate the identification of key linguistic and literary demands within the context of varied subject matter instruction.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Taller introductorio en el aprendizaje cooperativo. Se trata de una sesión práctica para aprender recursos y estrategias que permiten estructurar los contextos orales para el desarrollo lingüístico y académico. Estas técnicas garantizan la responsabilidad individual y el compromiso grupal en el trabajo en equipo de los estudiantes, así como la interacción equitativa.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop examines the pitfalls and potential that peer interaction holds as a pedagogically effective means of developing students' oral proficiency. It particularly explores the teacher's role in designing peer interaction tasks, modeling and teaching reciprocal learning strategies, scaffolding student interactions, and promoting students' self-evaluation of their learning.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Integrated Performance Assessments (IPA) hold great potential for assessing immersion students' ability to use the L2 to engage with academic content. In this workshop, presenters will overview the IPA and how it can be adapted to the immersion context; participants will develop themes and tasks for use in their own programs.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

In this workshop, presenters will discuss five key strategies for leading immersion programs: know your program and the research that supports it; keep the focus on student learning; invest in developing and supporting teachers; strategically leverage time and resources; and use multiple measures to inform improvement and communicate growth. Participants will engage in facilitated discussion to learn from each other.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

How do we support language learners so they can access rigorous content in middle school and beyond? How can we structure engaging activities to support critical thinking and advanced language use? These questions and more will be addressed. Attendees will experience proven strategies first-hand, see example units, and access additional resources online.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This interactive workshop will introduce participants to research-supported practices that expand character/word knowledge in Mandarin immersion classrooms. Participants will work together to develop an articulated series of activities for a text of their choosing. They will then be prepared to carry out similar activities and plans in their respective classrooms.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Community-based preservation, educational and advocacy groups are at the forefront of creating a sustainable future for endangered Indigenous languages. Presenters will discuss their process for synthesizing new vocabulary and curriculum for contemporary programming needs, adapting traditional cultures to classroom settings, and keeping teaching and learning authentically Indigenous in changed contexts of delivery and use.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Leverage the power of digital tools to improve students' writing! Through digital writing, immersion and dual language students can reach an authentic worldwide audience, motivating them to become better writers. Learn how to structure an immersion-friendly digital writer's workshop and see examples of students' digital writing using various tools.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop will prepare your program to work with assistant teachers from other countries, like those from Amity.org. Through interactive activities, educators will develop their own "tool-kit" for: (1) supporting/training host families; (2) orienting assistants to the U.S. education system; and (3) providing mentorship plans for full-time teachers and their assistants.
Workshop attendees should bring their own computer/tablet to develop their tool-kit.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This will be an exploration of what "recruiting diverse learners" means in various environments. Identifying which diverse learners you target when recruiting for an immersion program is of utmost importance. Our essential question for this exploration "Now that you have them, how do you keep them?"

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop will familiarize participants with a new K–5 formative assessment tool: the Classroom Observation Checklist Kit, and provide guidance on how to integrate assessment and instruction in the classroom. Participants will experience sample CLOCK assessment activities and checklists through interactive discussions and simulations including hands-on practice with the CLOCK.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

One advantage of immersion and other content-based instruction is that students have more hours of contact with the new language. Even so, the importance of making good use of classroom time cannot be overstated. In this workshop, we will look at ways to make sure that every minute counts.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

The shortage of highly qualified teachers seriously threatens the sustainability of DLI programs. Many state and district administrators have resorted to international collaborative initiatives to meet this challenge. This workshop explores effective systems of support that facilitate the successful integration of international guest teachers into our local and academic DLI communities.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Immersion classrooms increasingly include students with a large range of linguistic proficiency levels. This workshop will assist teachers in identifying how and when to implement strategies that expand all students' access to and use of academic language during content instruction. Participants will leave ready to implement language-focused differentiated instruction in their own classrooms.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop will focus on the integration of Hawaiian language and culture into distinct practices and protocols within Hawaiian medium education. Experiential learning through culture-based pedagogy will be highlighted as a means to foster a strong sense of cultural identity. Participants will consider the relevancy of concepts and practices to their particular immersion contexts as well as engage in hands-on cultural activities.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This dialogic workshop describes a partnership with a local school that allows for the development and implementation of Mandarin Chinese instructional frameworks. This session explores: 1) immersion teacher collaboration; 2) literacy-based mini lessons with clear language objectives; and 3) linguistic feature form-focused activities based on an emerging Mandarin Chinese structural scope and sequence.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop presents an instructional sequence that integrates language and content across the immersion curriculum. The sequence begins with a primary focus on content during the noticing phase then zooms in on language during the awareness and guided practice phases before returning to a primary focus on content during the independent practice phase.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

What are learning centers? How can you use them to reinforce language and to differentiate instruction? Where to begin? These questions and more will be addressed in this dynamic hands-on workshop. Participants will create learning centers activities, and leave with ideas, materials, and the knowledge to implement learning centers in their own classrooms.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop will familiarize participants with the Early Language Listening and Oral Proficiency Assessment (ELLOPA) used with language learners in preK–Grade 2 through assessment samples and hands-on practice. The presenter will also provide guidance on how to conduct effective summative oral proficiency and listening comprehension assessments with young learners.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Secondary immersion programs face special challenges as well as unique opportunities for immense student growth in language mastery and community building. In this workshop, key issues such as articulation, course selection, materials, curriculum development, staffing, and late entry will be discussed while presenting a few successful models. There will be time for questions and sharing by participants.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop focuses on writing strategy instruction that foster self-regulation and learner's autonomy. I will discuss the findings and the classroom implications of a research project on writing development in an immersion context that focused on typically developing writers and at-risk writers

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This workshop connects belief about minority language status to pedagogy by sharing practitioner-designed strategies that keep students in the target language throughout instruction. By exploring a proven L2 only policy and timeline, model lessons, and incentive plans, participants are equipped to promote target language development for primary and secondary students.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

This session focuses on supporting second language learners at risk for reading difficulties. We explore factors that impact the identification of at-risk readers and ways to better identify them. We also examine the reading development of at-risk and typically developing L2 readers and differentiated reading instruction practices that help support a wide range of readers.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Using a biliteracy framework and the three premises for planning and implementing biliteracy, participants will experience biliteracy in action. Videos, photos, and samples will illustrate what Spanish (or another non-English language), the Bridge, and English look like in a biliteracy program. Online resources and tools will be shared.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

In this session, participants will explore how Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) can inform instruction and program articulation. Participants will assess sample student performance, from which student instructional needs will be identified. Participants will hear reflections from lead learners on using adapted IPAs to inform instruction and student ownership of learning.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

The cognitive and linguistic consequences of bilingualism for children are now well documented. In brief, bilingual children tend to have smaller vocabularies in each language than comparable monolinguals but typically perform better than monolinguals on tasks demanding selective or controlled attention. What is less clear is how these effects might be different for bilingualism in the context of bilingual education. Some children become bilingual through instructional programs such as immersion education, some children enter school as bilingual and need to transition to a different school language, and some children come to school as bilingual with the intention of maintaining both languages, typically the home and community languages. Overriding all this are demographic realities, particularly in the US, in which bilingualism is often confounded with socioeconomic status and ethnicity. This talk will present evidence that evaluates the role of bilingualism in the development of attentional control for children in various types of bilingual education programs, including children at risk.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

Although many people believe that there is indeed a labor market advantage to bilingualism, economists have routinely refuted this. Our research at the Civil Rights Project dug deep into the data and found both the same things that earlier economic studies had found, and also quite different findings. I will discuss what makes the difference in the labor market for bilinguals and what implications our findings have for language education policy across the nation. I will also highlight the urgency to change policy course in the U.S. as our linguistic resources are actually shrinking.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Indigenous Languages

Indigenous Language Immersion

Post-Secondary

This paper highlights the role and impact of adult immersion programming in Kahnawà:ke: Mohawk Territory. Sharing community efforts to revitalize Kanien'kéha though primarily school based initiatives, the presenter describes how consideration for preparing teachers with skills to implement programming has led to a whole community approach in Kanien'kéha language revitalization. 

After over 40 years of efforts in language revitalization in the Mohawk community of Kahnawà:ke, the language can be heard in many domains within the community. Following many years of hard work, patience and dedication, Kanien’kéha revitalization in Kahnawà:ke seems to be at a threshold and it seems as though the next steps in language revitalization will be pivotal.

This paper shows that because the majority of all Kanien’kéha language programming is initiated, facilitated and maintained by second language speakers in Kahnawà:ke, community planning needs to continue its investment in adult second language speakers in order to insure highly accurate unabridged language will be passed on to the next generations. The intent of this research paper is to inform future language planning in Kahnawà:ke as well as to offer an example of successful initiatives for other Indigenous communities invested in revitalizing their precious languages.

Using a qualitative research design, a community survey was conducted to give voice to adult L2 speakers in Kahnawà:ke in order to determine how they can be supported in maintaining and achieving very high proficiency. Past graduates of the Kanien’kéha Ratiwennahní:rats Adult Immersion Program were surveyed to represent the growing demographic of adult L2 speakers in Kahnawà:ke. The adult immersion program has been in existence for 12 years, seeing over 145 graduates with varying degrees of spoken language proficiency. Until now, there has never been any study to follow their language use after completing the program.

This paper describes how they are using Kanien’kéha in community, how they are continuing their language learning and what resources have been useful for their language maintenance or growth. This knowledge highlights the significance of adult second language learners in Indigenous languages revitalization and contributes to our understanding of the integral role of adult learners in revitalizing Indigenous languages.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish/English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

This paper shares insights from a two-year ethnographic study that explores how teachers at one high-performing, bilingual K-8 school make sense of and navigate the Common Core. The paper offers a counternarrative to more conventional accounts of policy implementation in schools serving ELs; findings have implications for policymakers and practitioners.

In 2012, we visited a K-8 school that is bucking national trends by supporting English Learners (ELs) to develop as bilterate, socially conscious citizens and to achieve at high levels on traditional assessments. During that visit, the school’s teachers spoke—unprompted, with agency and optimism—about implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Interested in learning from their process, we invited them to join a research project. This paper shares insights from the resulting two-year ethnographic study, which explored how ten teachers—working within the high-performing school’s dual immersion program—make sense of and navigate the CCSS.

While our paper responds to popular debates about national standards, it also breaks from prior accounts of standards-based reform by drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory to explore the particular tensions and contradictions that arise at the intersection of standards-based reform, high-stakes accountability, and teaching practice guided by the core tenets of multicultural, bilingual, and critical education. Specifically, our analysis examines the relationships among standards-based reform, local school conditions, and teachers’ instructional practices across multiple classrooms, grades and disciplines.

Focusing in this way, we illuminate crucial aspects of a controversial policy and complex implementation process—aspects that are uniquely visible and instructive, because of the school’s high-functioning culture and high-performing status, and its teachers’ shared pedagogical orientation, commitment to bilingualism/bilteracy, and exemplary work ethic.

Ultimately, we argue that the school offers a kind of counter-narrative to the often-grim predictions about standards-based reform, teaching practice, and academic achievement among historically underserved students. We also show, however, that when pressured to implement accountability-infused policies, even well-informed, dedicated educators run the risk of attending to policy-related demands in ways that undercut, rather than enhance, instructional quality, particularly for ELs and other students from non-dominant groups and in established (and essential) bilingual programs.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

German, English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This pilot study examines the linguistic and academic outcomes of children with reading-related problems, low intellectual ability and concentration deficits who attended German-English immersion in German elementary schools. Although the childrens' performance was affected by their cognitive or linguistic deficits, intensive exposure to the target language positively affected their L2 development.

In Germany, immersion/CLIL programs still have a distinct elitist reputation and students with cognitive and/or linguistic problems are often prevented from attending them (e.g., Apsel 2012). However, the effectiveness of any school program depends on its ability to cater for all groups of students including potential at-risk students (e.g., Genesee & Fortune 2014). In this pilot study, we will explore the linguistic and academic outcomes of such students in German-English immersion programs offered in elementary schools in Germany. The focus will be on children with reading-related problems, children with low intellectual ability and children with attention deficits. The children were selected on the basis of the results they achieved in various standardized tests (e.g., Coloured Progressive Matrices, D2-R, Hamburger Schreibprobe, Ein Lesetest für Erst- bis Sechsklässler).

Although the sample size is rather small (N = +/- 15 per group), the results of the present study indicate that these at-risk children faced the same problems as they would in mainstream programs (e.g., Fortune & Menke 2010): For example, the children with reading-related problems often had difficulties in both L1 (German) and L2 (English) reading and writing tasks and those with attention deficits and/or low intellectual ability were usually outperformed by their peers with an age-appropriate attention span or cognitive development, irrespective of whether these tests were conducted in the L1 or in the L2.

Most importantly, however, the at-risk children in the present study benefited from attending an immersion program because they could not but acquire the target language in this context and showed a progression in all tests as a function of L2 exposure. Based on these positive results, we infer that immersion programs should be accessible to all students independent of their background. This, however, requires teachers who are willing and able to adequately support these children.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

multiple

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

This activity shows how the use of book clubs within a Spanish immersion classroom can promote the development of literacy through student engagement and socialization. An example of how to set up an engaging book club that encourages student participation and ownership will be provided. Benefits of student participation will be explored and video clips from book club related activities will be shared along with related activities and assessments.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Chinese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Chinese radicals are challenging for young students to understand and memorize. This lesson is for kindergarten or 1st grade students. It’s a review lesson. The goal of this lesson is that students will be able to recognize and name the radicals they learned. The lesson includes whole group activity, small group activity, Smartboard activity and table work. Students are encouraged to use their whole body to learn the radicals, such as mimicking radicals with imagination. Movements help young students learn efficiently, and the activities presented are associated with abundant movements in the classroom.  The presenter will also show how to do assessment through the activities. Technology plays an important role in this lesson too. Students have chance to play radicals games on Smartboard. Besides, fun but practical table works will be provided. Students have many opportunities of listening, speaking and writing in this lesson. Learning Chinese radicals can be fun!

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Chinese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

“How did you come up with that solution?” “Can you show me your thinking?” These are the questions we often ask our second graders in our Mandarin immersion Math class. In the Cognitive Guided Instruction (CGI) approach, the teacher uses story problems to introduce a topic to encourage students to think and use any tools they want to explain their understanding of concepts using the target language.  In this learning environment, it not only builds children's natural problem-solving strategies, but also improves immersion students’ target language development by challenging them to express, orally and in writing, complex thinking using vocabulary and structures that are embedded in the lesson. In this presentation, two second grade Mandarin immersion teachers will demonstrate a series of activities/class assignments that have been using to achieve students' mathematical content learning goals as well as to develop their communicative language skills through lessons designed to integrate language and content.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

French, multiple

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Teachers who have iPads in their classrooms can maximize and showcase student language production in dual-immersion classrooms while incorporating ISTE standards at the Kindergarten level. During the Farm Animals unit of study, students learn the names of farm animals, their body parts, and describe them with various attributes (for example: hooves, snout, muzzle, tail). After learning these vocabulary words, students reproduce the words by scanning teacher prepared QR codes of farm animals, upload them into ChatterPix, Tellagami, or GreenScreen, to create a video describing the animal at the farm. Student work samples will be provided in addition to resources for teachers. This skill can be transferred into other units of study throughout the year and can be adapted for upper grade students.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

This session presents an instructional framework for bilingual development in Spanish and English informed by genre-based theory and practice that promotes an equitable focus to language development, increases coherence and correspondence across languages in TWI and DLI programs, and enhances emergent bilinguals’ access to academic content knowledge and skills.

Quality of language instruction is key to K-12 two-way immersion (TWI) and dual language instruction (DLI) programs.  However, K-12 accountability requirements along with lack of resources in the target language often result in a stronger focus on English language development.  This session addresses the strand of immersion pedagogy and assessment by introducing Dual Language Pathways, a dual language framework that provides rigor and coherence on K-12 language instruction across two languages in TWI and DLI programs.  The Dual Language Framework is a genre-based approach (Martin, 1992) to language instruction, informed by theory that has been shown to be effective in K-12 English instruction (Brisk, 2014; Gebhard et al., 2011; Gebhard, Chen & Britton, 2014; Schleppegrell, Greer, and Taylor, 2008), and at university-level Spanish instruction (Achugar & Colombi, 2008; Balke & Colombi, 2013; Colombi, 2003), not only for language development, but also for increased reading comprehension and writing across content areas.  This session presents an instructional framework for bilingual development in Spanish and English informed by current genre-based theory and practice to promote an equitable focus to language development, to increase coherence and correspondence across languages in TWI and DLI programs, and to enhance emergent bilinguals’ access to academic content knowledge and skills.   Participants will hear about an exploratory study being conducted in a large urban district in the West of the United States and look at preliminary data related to the use of the framework as the focus for professional learning for the district.  The session will also include hands-on application of the framework, sample dual language pathways for Spanish and English and a discussion on the implementation of the pathways in TWI or DLI programs

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Guided reading is the heart of a balanced literacy program. Planning guided reading time right from the start of the year is crucial for language acquisition. In a small group setting, students start by building up oral language development, phonological and phonemic awareness to become independent readers.

In this session, I plan to share a successful practice in my DLI Kindergarten classroom. Guided reading is the cornerstone of my balanced literacy program. Planning guided reading time from the beginning of the school year is crucial for academic success. Students are grouped heterogeneously from day one, targetting skills in phonics, phonemic awareness, and phonological awareness by the first quarter. As these skills are mastered, students are regrouped by instructional levels to be taught reading skills such as reading behaviors, attending to concepts about the book, using picture cues, applying letter and sound knowledge in context, predicting and infering, among others. During a 20 minute period, the teacher and a small group of children talk, think and read through a text which offers manageable challenges for each reader. The same book is used for a week, with appropriate instruction for individual reading needs. In addition, language has an important role during this practice since it helps students build up they vocabulary repertoire and figure out meaning. Four groups rotate daily, and when not with the teacher, students work on the computer center where they listen and read computarized books, with a TA building up reading fluency (IDEL) or with independent reading time. One important piece of this practice is assessment. I created a data notebook that tracks students' progress and helps determining regrouping and differentiated instruction. Frequent assessmet and data analysis inform instruction and interventions to take place before students take state-mandated assessment such as IDEL or Running Records. Through my experience, I see that my students establish fundamental skills necessary for proficient reading in Spanish, improve attention to detail, develop reading comprehension skills, expand vocabulary knowledge of the new language, and perfom proficiently at state-mandated test. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

In this workshop, we explore how movement can mediate language acquisition with students from varying linguistic backgrounds. Facilitated by a researcher and experienced immersion teacher, the workshop will share best practices for integrating improv activities that target content-based language skills for a range of home languages and proficiency levels. 

Nonverbal modes of communication are integral for students learning a language (Canagarajah & Wurr, 2011). In this workshop, we explore how movement can mediate language acquisition with students from varying linguistic backgrounds. Facilitated by a researcher and experienced immersion teacher, the workshop will share best practices for integrating improv activities that target content-based language skills for a range of home languages and proficiency levels. Immersion teachers are encouraged to target language objectives for learners through multimodal scaffolds that expand linguistic repertoires. Immersion teachers are encouraged to target language objectives for learners through multimodal scaffolds that expand linguistic repertoires.

While including movement in your instruction is fun for students, it also can increase comprehension and student learning by tapping into student interests and learning profiles (Tomlinson, 2010). Teachers interested in implementing language-focused differentiated instruction have found improv to be a helpful strategy for expanding the communicative modes in their classrooms. Strategies will target increasing linguistic functional complexity through adapted improv warm up activities, games, and role plays. This interactive and dynamic workshop shares and expands upon best practices for the use of multimodality in the immersion classroom to foster language growth among linguistically diverse language learners.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Not language specific, but La ola del lago is Spanish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Participants will learn all the programmatic logistics required to successfully launch a new immersion school from an initial concept to a reality where students and teachers are learning in the target language. This presentation will share the successful story of La ola del lago Spanish Immersion in Prior Lake, MN.

“Can’t you just translate what you need?”  If it were only that simple!  Starting a new language immersion program is a complex and multifaceted process.  Come and learn the stories of how La ola del lago Spanish Immersion & El Bosque Encantado Preschool (both in Prior Lake, MN) strategically planned, pointedly communicated with stakeholder groups, overcame unique immersion nuances, and successfully launched thriving and growing schools.  Participants will learn strategies such as how to build a coalition of community stakeholders; the importance of networking with other immersion schools; how to recruit, hire and sustain top quality native speaking teachers - including licensure and visas; implement best practices in immersion instructional strategies; create a strong immersion community to ensure the most qualified teachers are able to be in the classroom; gain district buy-in for professional development, assessment, and curriculum; how to work with all stakeholders to promote, communicate, and share our schools’ stories; welcome and support guest teachers and/or interns; set a unique vision which supports immersion students’ systems of support - both intervention and advancement; and create a target-language only environment which promotes multiculturalism.  Come hear how a group of committed stakeholders developed a language immersion school from a concept to a thriving and viable organization.  This presentation will cover the entire process how public and private organizations partnered together to create language immersion educational opportunities to over 500 students and families.  Moreover, both La ola del lago & El Bosque Encantado have brought a keen awareness to multilingualism and celebrating diversity to the surrounding communities.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Three literacy centers that promote biliteracy:

- Pair a Prefix: this center provides practice in the structural and generative properties of words

- Cognates memory game

- Making words center: A center for students to make two, three, or four letter words

- Stamp the Suffix: Word parts center - in this center students use color coded stamps to identify suffixes

- Web quest novel study center: this is a technology-based learning center based on the novel Al Capone does my shirts

- Novel character recording center: in this center students speak on behalf of a character from a book they've read

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish

High School

This session reviews findings from a qualitative study related to changing cultural perspectives of native English-speaking and heritage Spanish-speaking high school students in a Spanish immersion program. Supportive relationships within the immersion family and the cross-cultural environment contributed importantly to students’ experiences. Attendees invited to share/explore high school immersion.     

This qualitative, descriptive study investigates students’ perceptions of their own culture and of their relationship to their peers of other cultural backgrounds. Participants included an ethnically, culturally, and socio-economically diverse group of 10^th-, 11^th-, and 12^th-grade native English-speakers (NES-19) and heritage Spanish speakers (HSS-8) in a stand-alone Spanish one-way immersion program (OWI) in large public high school in Virginia. Students took three academic content courses per year for four years. Data collection strategies included interviews (27) and focus groups (4), two for 10th graders and two for 11th and 12th graders. The data analysis process involved data reduction and thematic coding of all transcripts.

Scholars have identified goals and strategies for culture learning, yet very little empirical research exists on students’ experiences (Paige, R. M., Jorstad, H. L., Siaya, L., Klein, F., & Colby, J., 2003). De Jong & Bearse (2011) do examine high school students’ perceptions of their bilingualism/ biculturalism, but the empirical literature on any aspect of two-way immersion (TWI) high school programs is otherwise very sparse and is virtually nonexistent for OWI programs.

NES and HSS study participants traced their own cultural perspectives and immersion experiences retrospectively. The NES progressed in widening concentric circles from unfamiliar cultural products encountered in the classroom, to the local Hispanic community, to experiences in Spanish-speaking countries. In the end, they saw themselves as non-native Spanish-speakers, both linguistically and culturally. HSS students gained academic maturity (and language) through rigorous coursework, greater comfort in both cultures, and increased sensitivity to others’ perspectives. Spanish figured prominently in both groups’ future plans.

Social interaction was of crucial importance. Students from diverse cultural perspectives shared ideas, discussed, and debated, and fused over time into an “Immersion Family” that provided unfailing emotional support. The OWI setting thereby clearly facilitated cultural self-awareness, sensitivity, and flexibility. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish/English, Navajo and Pueblo Languages

In this session we will explore the primary motivations and essential leadership skills that lay the foundation for a successful DLE implementation, within a school community. Whether new to DLE, or a veteran, let us explore and commit to a shared leadership and capacity building that ensures our programs’ longevity and success.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This presentation reports on the findings of a qualitative study exploring the influence of a two-year long episodic professional development intervention on fifteen Grade 6-12 French immersion teachers’ ability to design and implement well integrated content and language lessons.  Implications for professional development and future research will be discussed. 

Although immersion programs are very popular in Canada, they are complex to implement and not as successful as we would hope them to be when it comes to the development of students’ language skills, which are lacking when compared to their native counterparts as they exit high school. Research indicates that a major issue lies in the difficulty to create well-balanced programs where both content instruction and language/literacy instruction can be targeted simultaneously. Thus, the challenges linked to language development faced by students in immersion can be partly attributed to insufficient attention being paid to the teaching of language and literacy skills within the context of subject matter instruction.  This presentation will report on the findings of a qualitative study conducted within the context of an ongoing five-year grant funded project in Western Canada titled (We Integrate Language Development and Critical Thinking (WILDCAT). Its overarching goal is increased student achievement through targeted professional development (PD) interventions aimed at raising immersion teachers’ awareness of the importance of language instruction within the context of content teaching so that they can better develop content and language integrated lessons.  Specifically, this longitudinal study explores the influence of an episodic 20-day PD intervention over a two-year long period of time designed for fifteen participating grades 6-12 French immersion teachers. Data include co-constructed lesson plans, classroom observations using a lesson-study framework, and focus-group debriefing sessions. This presentation will report on the preliminary findings, which indicate that the type of episodic PD interventions specifically designed for the WILDACT project and provided over a long period of time can have a positive effect on teachers’ ability to counterbalance instruction and that the lesson-study framework provides valuable support to such PD interventions.  The presentation will also outline some important lessons learned during the PD process. 

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Mandarin

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

How does length affect the rate of vibration, and therefore the pitch? In this lesson, students use a waterphone, xylophone, kalimba, and string beam to explore how length affects pitch. The teacher uses a Gradual Release of Responsibilty model (I do, We do, You do) to help students build the Mandarin language skills that they need to learn the science content for this lesson and to express their findings in speaking and in writing; Students use a double bubble map to compare and contrast similarities and differences between sound instruments in writing, and then orally present their observations to the class—All in Mandarin.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This session will highlight the design, implementation and assessment of a growing dual language program. This program began with a shared vision of dedicated educators, including teachers and administrators. This session is both for those starting a program and those reflecting on best practice for continuous improvement of their program.

This session will focus on the development of a 50/50 two way dual immersion program (Spanish/English) within a K-4 elementary school. The program currently includes kindergarten through second grade, with third grade being planned for fall of 2016. This program has been constructed by a group of dedicated educators, including a division coordinator, the principal, the instructional coach, classroom teachers, reading and ESL resource teachers. The presentation will highlight the reflective processes used as we researched, planned,implemented and continuously evaluate our program.

The presentation will begin with a look at the research studied, including how the research of Collier and Thomas and the observations of sustainable Dual Language programs informed the design.The decisions made to establish our non-negotiables and how they have been executed will be highlighted.The discussion will include the obstacles that have been encountered and the solutions we have sought. The reflections and the ongoing evaluation of the program will be shared. This will include what tools are being used to assess student growth in the areas of language production, biliteracy, mathematics and cultural awareness. The presentation will show how the results have driven instruction and led to new questions.

Through sharing both our successes and challenges transparently,we hope attendees will feel encouraged to ask questions about our process and share their strategies for developing a dual language program.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This round up integrated content lesson is based on social studies & science content lessons students have dealt with throughout the week, namely the description of objects, their origin and what they are made of.

The activities the students must carry out focus on students' oral production as well as their capacity to listen to a description of an object, understand it and find it on their bingo cards.

The grammatical features we will work on this lesson are WH questions. We decided to work on these features based on our Brazilian students’ needs regarding the difficulty they have when making WH questions accurately.

It's supposed to be a fun class as students will not only play the object definition bingo by the end of the lesson, as well as play a guessing game when trying to understand what their peers have drawn.

While students are working on the activity, the teacher is supposed to eavesdrop on each group or pair of students, to be able to assess their performance as well as help them when they make mistakes on the spot. 

Discussion Session (1 hour)

multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Often students gain knowledge of specific letters and numbers in their classrooms, but do not have the opportunity to really relates this knowledge to the world around them while in their own classrooms. This lesson will focus on using and mastering letter recognition in the target language through group work, incorporating art and creative aspects and real world application.  Students will be given a letter and various craft items such as images that relate to the letter and some that do not, newspaper adds and the like.  In groups, students must work together to create a collage that represents the number, letter or subject and present it to the class.  Students must take their knowledge of the subject and known representations learned in the classroom and extend them to the world by way of magazines, newspaper clipping and other similar materials.  This lesson incorporates, group work, target language use and knowledge, speaking and listening skills, presentation skills as well as fine motor skills.  This lesson is adaptable to many different subjects and grades.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Mandarin Chinese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

In this presentation, we will explore the role of culture and communication in building and sustaining successful Mandarin immersion programs. Strategies for facilitating effective communication among all involved will be shared and implications for developing strong staff development programs will be discussed.

In this presentation, we will build on the cross-cultural work of Ge Gao and Stella Ting-Toomey to explore the role of culture and communication in building and sustaining successful Mandarin immersion programs. Mandarin immersion programs in the U.S. are staffed primarily by teachers who were born and educated in China or Taiwan. In the context of an American school, differing cross-cultural assumptions about education can lead to misunderstandings in communication between parents and teachers, students and teachers, and among colleagues. Differing expectations for academic rigor, including the role of testing, expectations for homework and views on differentiation need to be bridged and understood from both cultural perspectives. Different approaches to instruction need to be acknowledged and addressed through staff development, such as the difference between the Chinese educational system's teacher-centered approach and the American educational system's student-centered approach to instruction and classroom management. Instructional approaches that support language learning in an immersion setting should be emphasized and privileged. Strategies for facilitating effective communication among all involved will be shared and implications for developing strong staff development programs to ensure program success will be discussed.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English, Japanese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Pre-K

How do children start translanguaging to become bilingual?  The paper investigates the onset of translanguaging abilities of two Japanese children in an American dual immersion preschool.  Through translanguaging, the children gradually expanded their capabilities to use the new language as resources, alongside their translanguaging space from exclusion to inclusion.

While there have been a variety of studies about the phenomena of people translanguaging when they are already bilinguals, either fluent or limited in their abilities, there is not enough research about the onset of translanguaging ability. For better understanding of the early translanguaging stages in the transition from monolingual to bilingual in the school setting, it is important to know how children actually start using the new language as resources to participate in the new language community.

This paper investigated (i) how classroom ecology drives children to start using their new language, (ii) if and how translanguaging by teachers and peers promote children’s translanguaging behaviors, and (iii) if and how translanguaging as a practice leads to the acquisition of the new language.

This is a longitudinal, ethnographic multi-case study of two Japanese children in an American double immersion preschool.  The classroom was analyzed from ecological perspectives, and all the translanguaging activities were audio-recorded and coded to be categorized into code-switching, translation, linguistic scaffolding such as recasts, or language brokering.  The choice of languages the Japanese children made and their English utterances were followed to see if there was any developmental change in both forms and functions.

It is found that, in a double immersion preschool, the translanguaging practice by the teachers created translanguaging space for the children and let them recognize that they can choose which language to use when and how.  Translanguaging provided the opportunities for the children to grow from monolingual to bilingual, and accordingly, enabled them to widen the membership of their speech community.  The study indicates some pedagogical suggestions, together with some future research issues such as translanguaging as a means of membership exclusion and the non-verbal responses as a pre-translanguaging stage.

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

not language specific

The panelists in this symposium will discuss how educational and political context, public policy and availability of resources have impacted program designs, as well as implementation and sustainability efforts to shape the landscape of language immersion education in their countries.

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

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

English

This symposium brings together researchers from across the world who use Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to examine pedagogic practices and drive forward theoretical understanding of the integration of content and language in educational contexts where teaching academic content through a second/foreign language forms a substantial part of the curriculum.

Social-semiotic and Functional Approaches to Language and Content Integration in Bilingual/Multilingual Education

Symposium organized by 

Ana Llinares, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and 

Tom Morton, University of London - Birkbeck

This symposium brings together researchers from around the world who use Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to investigate content and language integration in educational contexts where the learning/teaching of academic content is combined with the use and learning of an L2 as a substantial part of the curriculum. These contexts can go under different labels, such as immersion, content-based instruction, English-medium instruction or Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). According to Ortega and Byrnes (2008: 294), SFL is an approach to language and language analysis which links language use to its sociocultural contexts, sees language as a meaning-making system, provides tools for linguistic analysis of written and spoken texts, embodies a functional approach to grammar in context, and recognises the effect of educational practices on language use and literacy development. It is not surprising, then, that there has recently been a surge in interest in SFL-based approaches to investigate educational practices where content and L2 use/learning are combined. Llinares (2015) has shown how SFL provides tools for the analysis of both the products and processes of content and language integration. These tools include the metafunctions of language (ideational, interpersonal, textual), genre and register theory, and speech roles and functions. The symposium includes studies carried out in CLIL/immersion educational contexts from different parts of the world (Europe, Asia, the US). They illustrate different aspects of a social-semiotic and functional approach to content and language integration, often in combination with other perspectives, such as cognitive discourse functions, task-based learning, legitimation code theory, and usage-based linguistics. This multi-theoretical focus, together with a rich representation of different bilingual/multilingual educational contexts, will hopefully lead to a stimulating theoretical and pedadogic discussion and exploration of key issues in content and language integrated learning.

Exploring Content and Language Co-construction in CLIL with Semantic Waves

Angel Lin and Yuen Yi Lo, The University of Hong Kong

Academic discourse deploys ‘power words’ and ‘power grammar’ to construe disciplinary knowledge (Martin, 2013). This poses great challenges for learners, especially English language learners (ELL). Content subject teachers often ‘unpack’ academic discourse by concretising/ recontextualising abstract concepts and fleshing out the condensed meanings of technical terms. However, they seldom ‘repack’ academic discourse, which is essential for learners to master complex academic knowledge (Maton, 2013). In Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) ‘Semantic waves’, which model recurrent shifts between unpacking and repacking, is “key to cumulative knowledge-building” (Maton, 2013, p.8). Applying the concepts of ‘semantic waves’, this paper analyses how content and language are co-constructed in CLIL lessons in Hong Kong, where students are learning content subjects through their L2, English. Our analyses of two science lessons reveal some forms of ‘semantic waves’ – the teachers adopted various useful strategies to ‘unpack’ science concepts and language, especially with multimodalities (e.g. models, video clips, visuals) and students’ L1 resources; they also attempted to ‘repack’ academic language by providing explicit instruction on academic language and guiding students through academic writing tasks. These findings yield interesting insights into content and language integration in EFL CLIL contexts. 

Reconceptualizing the Structures Underlying Academic Language Learning in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Classrooms

Thomas Somers, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

This paper brings together two hitherto unrelated theoretical and methodological frameworks, Usage-Based Linguistics (UBL) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in order to investigate students' development of locally/contextually grounded, emergent inventories of interactional resources and routines in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms. Under this combined socio-functional view, academic language learning is envisioned as an experiential and item-based process from concrete chunks of language to abstract ‘constructions’ encoding semantic, pragmatic and discourse functions. Data consist of classroom recordings from social sciences CLIL secondary classrooms in the Community of Madrid. The analysis of interactional patterns focusses on how teacher's discourse and instructional practices in the target language in CLIL classrooms (can) model subject-specific discourse for students, and scaffolds students’ use and learning of subject-specific discourse, promoting its effective production by and among students in order to allow them to become successful users of academic discourse.

Combining Systemic Functional Linguistics and Cognitive Discourse Functions in Analysing Upper Primary Learners’ Expression of Science and History Content in L2 English

Ana Llinares, Natalia Evnitskaya and Rachel Whittaker, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Tom Morton, University of London - Birkbeck

This paper presents the analysis of upper primary students’ use of L2 English to express science and history content. The analysis was carried out using an instrument developed to combine Dalton-Puffer’s (2013) cognitive discourse functions and previous work on content and language integration in CLIL contexts using Systemic Functional Linguistics (Llinares, Morton & Whittaker, 2012). The findings reported are drawn from a wider project that focuses on the transition from primary to secondary education in a European CLIL context. The larger study follows the same students from grade 6 (primary school) to grade 7 (secondary school). In this first stage of analysis, we compare grade 6 students’ (11-12 year old) written and spoken use of the foreign language for the expression of specific cognitive discourse functions such as defining, describing, reporting or arguing with their use of the L1 (Spanish) for the expression of the same functions. These results are compared with these students’ performance in external examinations on English language competence as well as Spanish and Maths.

Expressing ‘Voice’ in a Foreign Language Across Content-subject Tasks

Christiane Dalton-Puffer, Universität Wien

Ana Llinares, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Some consider CLIL to be a “particular pedagogic manifestation of the task-based approach” (Skehan 1998, 276). Often however, non-language subjects (e.g. history, biology) drive CLIL more strongly than principles of  foreign-language teaching; hence, the importance of exploring the opportunities and challenges that subject-driven tasks offer for CLIL students’ use and development of the foreign language in their expression of academic content. One requirement for reaching the curricular goal of learning subject content, especially at higher levels of schooling, is to be able to evaluate or express “voice” on content and actively carry out such evaluative acts in classroom tasks. In this study we examine learners working on a range of naturalistic tasks during their CLIL lessons in three European contexts (Austria, Finland, Spain). The aims of the analysis are a) to explore the correlation of students’ performance of the cognitive discourse functions explore and evaluate (Dalton-Puffer, 2013) with different tasks; and b) to identify the frequency and types of appraisal used by the students to participate in these functions.

Bilingual Academic Language Development: Language Patterns Across Spanish and English School Genres

Andrés Ramirez & Sabrina Sembiante, Florida Atlantic University

Luciana de Oliveira, University of Miami

The academic content that emergent bilinguals (EBs) need to access in school is specialized and highly dependent on knowledge and use of particular language features (Schleppegrell, 2004; Gibbons, 2006). This demand is even more prominent in dual language programs as EBs are called to access academic content in two languages. Based on a preliminary functional analysis of a corpus of Spanish and English school genres in core content areas in grades 3 through 5, this presentation reports on genre-based similarities and differences across these texts. Presenters will describe the distinctive characteristics of the academic language demands of English and Spanish. In addition, they will present salient, potential linguistic challenges of the content areas of language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies in 3rd through 5th grade Spanish and English texts. Results carry several important implications for teaching the content areas to dual language learners at the elementary level. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific

An account of how DL/I schools can use a BASE-like approach to maximize untapped resources and leverage the content knowledge of secondary teachers to create an empowered academic school culture of learning about and through language across subject disciplines, with mutual benefit for both minority and majority language groups.

There is an omnipresent mindfulness across DL/I models that “language wraps itself around, in, through and between everything that we teachers and learners do in the classroom” (Ritchhart 2002: 141). While some argue that we must modify our expectations of language use in school and the way we teach, test and accept student versions of language. Others argue that we should teach students the every-day and academic uses of language intentionally (Zwiers 2014:18). The BASE approach proscribes to the ambitious belief that DL/I contexts can and should do both to counteract the complex plateau effect that limits many secondary students.

The BASE approach aims to coordinate untapped resources and leverage the content knowledge of secondary teachers to create an ambitious academic school culture of learning about and through language across subject disciplines, with mutual benefit for both minority and majority groups. It involves on-going needs analysis of teachers and students to inform tailored, just-in- time, research-based supports to guide teachers through being explicit about the subject related language and conventions they are already using, while giving students the tools they need to show what they know.

BASE takes the strikingly simple, yet highly effective position that all students are academic language learners in addition to sharing multiple identity markers such as struggling learner, learner with special needs, at-risk learner, gifted learner, or one with limited target language proficiency . This unified view strengthens integration of language groups while elevating the status of minority students. BASE does not create a sheltered or cognitively less demanding version of school content. Instead, it collaborates with departments (content areas, languages and special needs) to demystify the world of academic communication so that teachers are empowered and prepared to help students grow into eloquent, confident participants in their various communities of learning. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

SPANISH/ENGLISH

Elementary (K-5)

Session will showcase how a backwards-planning model and curriculum maps allow teachers to collaborate across languages to promote biliteracy development. Presenters will illustrate best practices in implementing explicit language instruction in a  content-based classroom and provide examples of assessment practices that were effective with their population.

This session illustrates a collaborative inquiry that explores ways to plan for purposeful language instruction and assessment in an 80/20 dual language immersion (DLI) program. The session will showcase how a backwards-planning model (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) and curriculum maps allow teachers to collaborate across languages to promote biliteracy development. In order for students to reach higher performance standards for language and literacy required by the Common Core State Standards, they need to “bridge” what they know across languages (Beeman & Urow, 2012). By developing specific instructional activities to increase awareness (Lyster, 2007) about language, students will be more likely to develop academic language in a content-based classroom.

A fifth grade teacher and intervention specialist planned and documented a thematic unit in a fifth grade DLI classroom. Their inquiry process seeks to discover how the teachers plan for instruction and assessment in order to increase student engagement and access to grade level curriculum. This session will illustrate best practices in implementing explicit language instruction in the content-based classroom and provide examples of formative and summative assessment practices that were effective with their school population. The data for the inquiry process is generated through planning meetings and post lesson reflections, videotaped classroom observations, teacher interviews, as well as collaboratively designed curriculum maps and lesson plans.

Presenters will share their planning process, engage the audience in specific activities designed to draw the learner’s attention to language that is critical to the literacy and content standards, and show student assessment data through video-clips, photographs and student work samples.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

German, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

After introducing the vocabulary for the school subjects as well as adjectives for describing persons in the previous lessons, the students in this lesson will learn a new grammar phenomena imbedded in the topic of school life: the sentence structure in sub clauses, at this time explained with the example of "weil-Sätze" (sentences with because). Since the sentence structure of those sub-clauses is different from the sentence structure in German (and English) main-clauses and one of the basics of German grammar and is therefore also basic for our students to learn.

In this lesson, students will first repeat their knowledge about the sentence structure in main-clauses (taught several lessons ago) in form of a digital quiz (kahoot.it), then figure out the differences in the sentence structure between main and sub-clauses and articulate the rule for it on the board; finally, students use their new knowledge in different ways (one-to-one with partner cards, omni-contact, speaking and writing) in order to strengthen their new skills.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Spanish, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

In this unit students apply a critical media analysis of the hip hop song Latinoamérica by Calle 13 including artists’ representation of identity through literary devices personification, metaphor and intertextuality.  Students shift attention between meaning and form (conjunctions + subjunctive or indicative) through noticing, awareness and practice tasks (Lyster, 2007).  Using the critical media analysis template, students then conduct an analysis of a Spanish language song and video of choice.  This unit is adaptable for language arts or social studies curriculum, though it was originally designed for a 10th grade blended class of 1-way immersion and heritage Spanish speakers studying a U of MN Span1003 curriculum.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Spanish, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

The DLI secondary team in Utah has developed a Culture and Media course that is optional but that many schools are choosing to offer. This course emphasizes the use of media to expose 7th and 8th graders to themes that are different to the ones presented in their text book. Most of the time, these themes are based in current events and follow the AP topics that will be again be revisited by the same population in 9th grade.

This lesson will teach students about the history of Human Rights and allow them to learn more about the presence of human rights around the world and in their own community.

The intended level of this activity is Intermediate Mid/high, but can be adjusted to different proficiency levels.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Not Language Specific

In areas of new immigration, school and community leaders want to develop immersion and dual language education, but they lack resources and a knowledge-base. This presentation will describe one state-wide effort to connect advocates and educators across diverse contexts. Discussion will address: How can we sustain such efforts?

Objectives: The goal of this best practice session is to describe one state-wide effort to connect advocates, researchers, and educators in their efforts to develop immersion and dual language education programs. In conversation with the audience, the session will address: How do interested educators and community members get started with efforts like this? Who are important stakeholders to include in such a coalition? How does one develop a website and use social media to develop relationships, spread information, and support dual language/immersion program development?

Background: The Missouri Dual Language Network (MODLAN) was ?rst conceived by Drs. Kim Song and Lisa Dorner of the University of Missouri and their community partners in 2014. Having worked in multilingual, immersion, and dual language communities for years, they saw a need for enhanced educational opportunities and training in Missouri. They began to meet, individually, with educators from across the state who worked at language schools, and invited them to attend an initial planning meeting in February of 2015.

At subsequent meetings, they defined their mission statement and objectives: MODLAN is a group of educators, school and community leaders, and university professors who believe in multilingual education for all students, as linguistically- and culturally-diverse learning opportunities are essential for success in an integrated, transnational society. MODLAN aims to:

• Connect multilingual schools and educators across Missouri
• Share information and research about language education
• Prepare strong teachers and school leaders for dual language/immersion programs
• Advocate for dual language education and multilingualism
• Empower multilingual parents and communities

They have since created Facebook and website pages (www.modlan.org), but need to determine how to reach out beyond their initial communities. This session will not only discuss the success that they have had in organizing, but also ask questions about how to move forward, developing ideas through conversation with the audience.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Chinese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

As immersion students reach the upper elementary grades, it can be a challenge to engage them in reading Chinese. I will present a project that I have used with my 5th grade Mandarin immersion students that integrates all four skills--reading, writing, listening and speaking--and that builds their interest in reading and in sharing their ideas about what they have read. Students work with a partner to choose a book at their level that they will read independently. They will then meet to share their understanding of the book and work together to write a written summary of each chapter and create a book of their own that is a re-telling of the story. They present their book to the class and engage them in a discussion of their opinions about the book. The results have been very powerful in keeping students engaged in reading Chinese and increasing their motivation for continuing to read in Chinese.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Mandarin and English

Elementary (K-5)

The session focuses on introducing Chinese Bilingual (Immersion) Program teachers to many fun, practical and ready-to-use games, ideas, and technology tools to increase student productivity, engagement, motivation, and language acquisition.

Although Chinese (Mandarin) Bilingual Elementary education dates back over 30 years in North America, significant changes are yet to be experienced in the way Mandarin language instruction (especially in relation to reading and writing)  is delivered to young learners. Unlike languages that use the Roman alphabet, learning the character-based Mandarin language requires memorization and rote practice in order to acquire basic reading and writing skills.  As a result, teachers often struggle to find new and exciting ways to engage and motivate learners to practice and maintain their literacy skills.  At Highwood School, a Chinese (Mandarin) Bilingual School with the Calgary Board of Education, we have found a more balanced approach to teaching Mandarin.  We recognize that there is a time, a place, and a purpose for direct instruction and pencil and paper, rote activities based on the nature and properties of the Mandarin language, but we have also found great value in incorporating more play based, interactive, experiential, and participatory approaches to engage and motivate young learners.

Activities such as hands-on games, rhythmic word recognition, word picture inductive model, kinesthetic movements, interactive teacher designed technology based projects and games, thematic writing, on-line programs, and visual representation are intentionally and purposefully integrated and embedded into daily language lessons.  By engaging young learners in various different types of Mandarin language learning activities, students have experienced greater language acquisition and knowledge retention because learning becomes interesting, meaningful, multi-faceted, and personalized.

The focus of this session would be to introduce Chinese Bilingual (Immersion) Program teachers to many fun, practical and ready to use games, ideas, and technology tools to increase their confidence through expanding their teaching strategies, and to increase student productivity, engagement, motivation, and language acquisition.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Chinese, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Most of our teaching focuses on academic language to meet the content standards of our grade-level. However, social language is as important to our students as academic language. This lesson shows a project in a 4th grade Chinese immersion class in which students share their personal interests and adventures (holidays/cooking/travels) in Chinese through video. Students begin by choosing a topic, planning for any new vocabulary, and imagining the scenes they plan to shot. After some practice, they ask their parents/friends to help them record the video. The videos are then shared with their classmates. The videos are designed to build their speaking proficiency in an informal and fun way that also helps us build community in the classroom. All students are highly motivated and develop their social language through this successful project.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Refugee families, many of whom have parental illiteracy, familial poverty, lack of community infrastructure, and lack of linguistic and pedagogical resources are uniquely disadvantaged when creating a heritage language school. This paper outlines how heritage language schools may require additional and special supports in refugee communities.

Unfortunately language loss is a sad reality in many Canadian immigrant families (Swindinski & Swindinski, 1997). Many new immigrants struggle to help their children learn their mother tongue once children leave for school (Mady, 2012). One of the chief causes for this forfeiture of language is a lack of time with children so that languages can be fully acquired (Wong-Fillmore, 1991). Some families find support in maintaining language within the family by sending their children to heritage language school where they get exposure to the language in an academic context and establish relationships with same-language peers. While most immigrant families experience language loss I will demonstrate how this problem of language transmission to one’s children is even further complicated in refugee families because of parental illiteracy, familial poverty, lack of community infrastructure, and lack of linguistic and pedagogical resources.

The data in this study have been organized through Fishman’s (1991) Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale which examines language endangerment and Hornberger’s (2005) Language Policy and Planning which works towards reversing language shift. Five semi-structured interviews/focus groups were used to understand participants’ experiences as they relate to heritage language learning in refugee communities in Alberta: Cindy (a community development specialist), Monique (a school leader with both refugee and immigrant families), Fritz (a school leader from a no-longer operating school), Fabian (a multicultural heritage camp leader & former HL school leader), and Fane’s community’s focus group. Interview questions asked about multiculturalism, HL school history, curriculum, teachers, parents, HL school costs, and community benefits. Understanding some of the barriers that communities face in establishing schools allows for supports to be designed. Canada, a multicultural nation, has a unique opportunity to assist these refugee communities in the conservation of their languages many of which are endangered. Available supports to heritage language schools are discussed.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French, English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This presentation looks at how ideological and social assumptions related to learning and teaching French bring challenges to students in French immersion. From a sociolinguistic lens and using discourse analysis, I will talk about what it means to be bilingual and to learn one of the official languages in Canada.

French immersion in Canada has a long history. In Western Canada, the program is very well established and several students attended French immersion schools in the past and continue to do so. The program is successful for many reasons but there are also some challenges, not related directly to the program, but linked to the learning and teaching French in Canada. French is an official language in Canada and francophones or French Canadian are very proud of their language and culture. When it is time for English speakers or Allophones (people who don’t speak French or English as first language) to learn French, they are facing ideological and social assumptions related to the language. French might be a ‘chic’ language to learn in USA or elsewhere but, in Canada, it means being part of an ethnocommunity that fight for their rights and has specific ‘rules’ for those who wants to join in. In this presentation, using a discourse analysis and a sociolinguistic lens (Heller, 2011), I will look at how French is seen from parents, administrators, students and teachers in French immersion schools. I conducted an ethnographic research in six schools over a period of 3 years, collecting observations notes and interviewing participants. I will show that one of the reasons students in French immersion are not seen as legitimate speakers of French is because they don’t ‘live’ in a francophone culture. They are not considered bilingual either because they don’t speak French with a high competency even if we know that being bilingual means using languages in different contexts for different purposes (Grosjean, 2008).

Grosjean, F. (2008). Studying Bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 Heller, M. (2011). Paths to Post-Nationalism. A Critical Ethnography of language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Dutch, English, German

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

High School

This paper presents data from a case study investigating the effects of Dutch-English bilingual education on the learning of German as a third language at secondary level. Specifically, it will highlight the impact on pupils’ linguistic repertoires and discuss its implications for language pedagogy with reference to literature on translanguaging.

Over the last fifteen years, Europe has seen a sharp rise in the number of schools offering bilingual or CLIL programmes in response to the high linguistic demands in many European countries, particularly those associated with advanced proficiencies in English. This rise in the provision of bilingual education means that an increasing number of foreign language teachers in Europe are now teaching their subjects to learners with bilingual proficiencies, whether as a second or as a third language. Yet, most teaching methodologies and language textbooks, including those commonly used in bilingual and CLIL settings, are based on principles from second language acquisition (SLA) rather than bilingualism and third language acquisition (TLA), which means that a monolingual rather than a multilingual norm is often taken as the starting point for curriculum design and instructional practices. In this paper, data will be presented from a case study investigating the effects of Dutch-English bilingual education on the learning of German as a third language (L3) as conducted in a secondary school in the Netherlands that offered a bilingual programme alongside its regular programme. By bringing together evidence from think-aloud tasks, lesson observations and interviews with both students and teachers, this paper will shed light on the impact of the bilingual programme on pupils’ linguistic repertoires and reveal some of the translingual practices that the pupils and teachers engaged in despite the largely monolingual norms and pedagogical principles adopted in the different foreign language (FL) classes. The implications for language (L1, L2, and L3) learning and pedagogy will be discussed with reference to the literature on translanguaging. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Not language specific, although Cherokee will be used as the demo language

This session showcases, with demonstrations in Cherokee, an immersion planning approach we call “Language Looping.” Through “looping” planning, meaningful practice is structured sequentially so that learners are able to activate their short-term memory for immediate classroom practice and then, eventually, move newly learned material into their long-term memory.

This Best Practice presentation showcases and demonstrates an immersion planning model that has proven successful with learners of Cherokee.  It is based on two primary premises; first, that second language learning, especially in the early stages, relies greatly on memory and repetition for intake of vocabulary, structures, and phrases; and second, that success at this stage depends on the teacher’s ability to provide ample, meaningful practice so that learners are able to activate their short-term memory for immediate classroom practice and then, eventually, move newly learned material into their long-term memory. Enter “language looping”.

Language looping is a planning approach in which teachers plan manageable chunks, or “sequences,” of new material to present to students over a short period of time.  During a sequence, teachers build knowledge by first providing comprehensible input.  During this phase, they build up to communicative practice between students and their instructors.  Once a sequence is mastered, the teacher moves to the next sequence.  Then, after two or maybe three sequences, the teacher “loops” back to the earlier sequences to incorporate all the material learned into one “recombination”.  This recombination is not simply a repeat of the previous lessons; rather, it is an opportunity for students to expand and enrich their language use in fun and engaging ways, thereby helping them to store that material into long-term memory.

Looping requires careful planning on the part of the teacher to create sequences that naturally fit together in recombination.  This detailed planning will pay off in students feeling less overwhelmed by the immersion experience and more confident in their use of newly acquired language.  And, students will come out of their immersion experience with more than just lists of memorized words, but actual understanding of how to put those words together for authentic communication.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Mandarin

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This session briefly examines research findings on the median oral proficiency levels attained by 277 Mandarin immersion students in three early total programs. Presenters will also share their analysis of three students’ learner language in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency and discuss implications for program design and implementation.

While we often hear terms such as “functionally proficient,” “fluent,” “bilingual,” to describe the language proficiency of immersion learners, or in the case of this study, “Jr. Novice High,” “Jr. Intermediate High,” and Jr. Advanced Low,” it is often unclear what such terms mean making it difficult for educators to benefit fully from assessment results. In what ways does the language produced by an immersion learner rated at one level differ from that produced at another? In concrete terms, what does oral language proficiency look like for students in Kindergarten, Gr. 2 and Gr. 5?

The purpose of this study was to examine the second language (L2) oral proficiency of 277 early total Mandarin immersion students and to describe in-depth three students’ learner language (one Kindergartener, one Gr. 2, and one Gr. 5).  Following Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005), Foster, Tonkyn, and Wigglesworth (2000), Housen and Kuiken (2009), and Housen, Kuiken and Veders (2012), this research study carried out a detailed analysis of three interdependent constructs in the field of L2 acquisition: complexity, accuracy, and fluency. This type of systematic study of learner language has allowed researchers to identify and compare specific features of an individual's L2 production. Such information can be used to indicate what kind of language is possible at a given proficiency level and may also inform areas of language development that will benefit from focused, explicitily targeted instruction in the immersion classroom.

This session will briefly report findings on the median proficiency levels attained by Mandarin immersion students from three K-5 programs using the Center for Applied Linguistics Student Oral Proficiency Assessment. Participants will also look at videotaped speech samples and examine results from global and specific measures of complexity and accuracy for three students who represent the median proficiency levels for their respective grade levels.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Spanish, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Students immerse themselves in a four week unit on debates. We begin the unit with an introductory hook topic (motorized hoverboards) to engage and excite the students and teach the basics of persuasive writing: position statement, reasons, evidence, counterargument, rebuttal and concluding statement. Then the students are divided into debate teams where they are assigned a topic; either technology or vegetarianism. The students spend several days researching their topic with their team by reading articles and watching videos, collecting evidence for both pro and con. They determine whether their evidence is a quote, fact, statistic or example and learn how to elaborate on their evidence to prove their reason. After that, students organize their research into a table and continue to elaborate on each reason. Finally they write an opening and a closing, decide who will read which parts of the debate and create simple visuals to aid their presentation. We end the unit with the oral debate in front of the rest of the school. This unit beautifully compliments the English writing unit of persuasive letters.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Scottish Gaelic (but not langauge specific)

This paper reports on research with propsective and practicing teachers working in Gaelic-medium education in Scotland, concerning perspectives on translanguaging: some see this as a transformative pedagogical practice where bilingual learners strengthen competence in both languages, while others remain committed to classroom practices exclusively in the target language.

Translanguaging is generating increasing interest, both as a way of understanding how bilinguals use their languages in daily life, and, more specfically, as a transformative pedagogical practice where bilingual learners develop content knowledge and strengthen their competence in both languages through their systematic use in the classroom. Baker (2011)¹ provides a useful account of the development of the practice which derives originally from Welsh-medium education: in this context, given a lack of classroom resources in Welsh, pupils often read texts in English but discussed and wrote about them in Welsh. It was found that systematically varying the ‘input’ and ‘output’ languages benefited pupils’ abilities in both languages. However, this practice sits uneasily with the principles of language immersion education, where exclusive of the target language may be an established goal.

The research reports the perspectives of propsective and practising teachers on the pedagogical value of translanguaging. Findings are drawn from focus group discussions with groups of student teachers, practising primary (elementary) and secondary (middle/ high school) teachers, already working, or about to start work in Gaelic-medium classrooms in urban and island locations in Scotland. Having read in advance Baker’s 2011 account of translanguaging, in English, each group discussed in Gaelic their responses, perspectives, current practices and the future opportunities they identify. The exercise mirrors a translanguaging task, enabling focus group participants to reflect on their own responses to working in this way, as well as considering how this works, or might work, in the classroom.

The findings have a bearing on initial teacher education and professional development for minority language medium educators, indicating how professionals involved in immersion education for language revitalisation can explore the classroom implications of theoretical developments in the field. 

¹ Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (5^th Ed.). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. (Chapter 13)

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This mixed-methods study explores the impact elements of school culture, internal factors, and the state of flow have upon motivating French immersion teachers in Louisiana in the constant development of expertise. Surveys, interviews, and observations will be used to analyze the motivational factors causing French immersion teachers to pursue expertise.

The mixed-methods study explores the impact the elements of school culture, internal factors, and the state of flow have upon motivating French immersion teachers in Louisiana in the constant development of expertise. Over five decades of language immersion research demonstrates the benefits of such programs upon students’ academic achievement, language and literacy development in two or more languages, and cognitive skills. Students engaged in French immersion programs achieve equally or better than students in non-immersion programs.

In order to achieve the purpose of the research, the researchers collected both qualitative and quantitative data to describe and understand the motivational factors causing French immersion teachers to pursue expertise. The quantitative measure included two surveys. One survey measured the motivational factors of French immersion teachers. The second survey measured the perceived professional culture of the schools with French immersion programs. The qualitative measures included interviews and observations of selected French immersion teachers.

Research from this study contributes to the body of knowledge concerning expert teachers and the forces working within and upon these individuals and their development in order to inform policy at the local, state, national and international level.  One element missing in the research is a deep understanding of the impact school culture, internal factors, and the state of flow have upon motivating language immersion teachers in the constant development of expertise. The study expands the research base concerning the development of optimum cultures where the pursuit of expertise is the norm.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Based on a French dual-immersion program, although recommendations are not language specific.

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This study explores parent engagement in a 90/10 French dual immersion program in an urban public school in Southern California. Parents who do not speak the instructional language struggled with providing academic support for their students at home. Results of the parent survey will be presented.

There is an extensive body of research that explores parent engagement in different contexts and posits frameworks for such engagement (Epstein, 2010), and identifies a positive relationship between parent engagement and student achievement (Henderson & Mapp, 2002) as well as a discrepancy in types of engagement between different ethnic groups (Lee & Bowen, 2006). One focus area for research has been diverse communities that serve emergent bilingual students who are served in bilingual programs (Caspe, 2002). The growth of dual-immersion programs has attracted many middle-class English-only families, which is adding another layer to the notion of parent engagement. These parents enthusiastically offer their child(ren) the opportunity to learn a second language, however, they rapidly realize the difficulties in supporting their students academically when they do not speak the language of instruction. In this paper, results are presented from a survey of French dual-immersion English-only parents, spanning across four grade levels at one urban school in Southern California. The survey was distributed via e-mail through GoogleForms to 43 parents with a brief description of the intent of the survey. It included 19 short answer, multiple choice, Likert scale, and open response questions regarding the experience of the parents. Twenty-seven responses were received and analyzed through graphics while open-ended responses were coded with keywords to capture parent sentiments. The results highlight their needs, struggles, and successes within the school community. For example, 85% of the parents are interested in receiving a pamphlet that includes available free resources to support student learning and 66% would like a list of research-based “do’s and don’t’s” in dual-immersion learning. In addition, this paper also suggests technology implementation that teachers can include in their instruction and assistance provided by the administration so that English-only parents feel less anxious about the dual-immersion process.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Situated in a Social Studies class delivered in Spanish as part of a 9th grade continuation immersion program, students will learn and discuss the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the United States with a focus on the present indicative or subjunctive with impersonal expressions. Students will shift attention between form and meaning with noticing, awareness and practice tasks guided by the counterbalanced framework (Lyster, 2007).

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Spanish, multiple

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

This is a multi-purpose activity with different activities displayed on the same time for students in groups 3-6. The multiple activities scaffold different sets of goals from a reading and a writing perspective. The activity covers a wide range of proficiency levels. Currently I implement it through a semester 2 days x 20 minutes each week with my 9th graders.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

multiple"

Elementary (K-5)

This session will address the main pedagogical strategies for training teachers in the Spanish and French Dual Immersion Programs. Special attention will be dedicated to the teaching of writing and the strategies that DLI teachers can implement in their classroom such as scaffolding, graphic organizers, mentor texts, and modeling. 

With the growing number of Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs in Spanish (73) and in French (19) in the state of Utah comes increased demand for teachers who possess both the linguistic and academic preparation to face the challenges associated with the DLI curriculum. How do Spanish and French teachers respond to these pedagogical and academic challenges? What are the main approaches to successfully teach linguistic skills in the DLI program? What are the main areas in which teachers need specific and structured training? What are the most effective materials to assist these teachers in their work?

This session will address these questions, which have formed the framework for workshops that the author has conducted to train teachers in the Spanish and French Dual Immersion Programs. Special attention will be dedicated to the teaching of writing and the strategies that DLI teachers can implement in their classroom such as scaffolding, graphic organizers, mentor texts, and modeling.

Participants will be familiar with the different approaches that have been used in the workshops to train Spanish and French teachers in the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs. Participants will expand their understanding on the writing process, the integration of the common core, and the language proficiency targets in the DLI classroom.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Chinese, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

In this unit WHO AM I, students will bring in a variety of photos from their lives, and the teacher will interview them to learn more about their past, present and future. By the answers that students give to the questions, they will reveal who they were as kids, who they are now, and who they hope to become in the future, and how their lifestyle choices (activities etc.) and relationships with others make them who they are and who they will be.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

Indigenous Language Immersion

What can we learn from Indigenous revitalization-immersion to improve education practice for Indigenous and other nondominant learners? What do these efforts teach about promoting equity, positive identity development, and individual and communal well being? As a unique "third model" of immersion education (Tedick et al., 2011), Indigenous revitalization-immersion has the combined goals of developing proficiency in the Indigenous language as a second language, promoting cultural knowledge and pride, and producing academic outcomes in parity with dominant-class students (Wilson & Kamanā, 2011). Examining research and praxis across cultural contexts, this presentation develops the themes of holism, relationship-building, belonging, and linguistic and educational self-determination. Understanding how diverse Indigenous peoples have been able to achieve success in their revitalization-immersion efforts, despite challenging circumstances, gives us a lens into how language policies and practices can be re-envisioned to support cultural and linguistic diversity and more inclusive, socially just education practices for all.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

As California voters consider dismantling Proposition 227 in November 2016, bilingual educators, parents and students must become aware of how language ideologies and metaphorical framing affect political decision-making processes and program reforms.  I will present findings from a TWI program review revealing the importance of language ideology and metaphor in reform efforts. 

As California voters consider dismantling Proposition 227 through the SB 1174 proposition on the November 2016 ballot, bilingual educators, parents and students must become aware of the role language itself plays in the political decision-making process.  I will present findings from a doctoral study of a TWI program review that revealed the importance of language ideology and metaphor in a failed reform effort.  I will present through interactive lecture, discussion and provide handouts to participants.  My purpose will be to make participants aware of the role that language ideology and metaphorical framing play in language policy decision-making at a moment when CA voters are considering language policy change.

The goals of the paper presentation include informing bilingual educators, parents, and students about ways to understand the language ideologies of individuals, and to examine the use of metaphor in making arguments about language policy reform, as well as allowing participants to reflect on their own understandings of bilingualism and its benefits.

My paper will present concepts and findings from a study on a TWI program review revealing the role of language ideology, understandings of bilingualism and the use of metaphor.  The presentation will include the opportunity to engage in individual writing about and small group discussion of personal definitions of bilingualism.  I will facilitate discussion about questions related to language ideology and metaphor.

Through the paper and presentation, it is my hope that session participants will become more aware of ways to talk about bilingualism and bilingual education with friends, neighbors, district and school administrators, as well as of their own beliefs about bilingualism and bilingual education.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English/Portuguese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This presentation summarizes our journey from a parallel monolingual to a holistic bilingual writing assessment model, from an initial classroom-based pilot to the creation of an action plan for implementation in other grade levels. We will discuss lessons learned and a phased approach for our schoolwide implementation.

This presentation aims to present and analyze the theoretical concepts that support a side-by-side writing assessment pilot project of a third grade classroom in a Portuguese-English one-way early total immersion school context. The theoretical framework used as a foundation is the holistic bilingualism view proposed by Soltero-González & Hernandez (2012), and the side-by-side writing assessment proposed by Escamilla et al. (2014), that analyzes bilingual writing from a holistic view where students make bidirectional use of both languages throughout their bilingual writing trajectory. The methodology consists of a descriptive pilot project in an ethnographic setting, which analyzes a specific reality, in this case a third grade classroom-based writing assessment, in light of the theoretical framework. The literacy process in both languages has as foundation the Common Underlying Proficiency hypothesis proposed by Cummins (1988), which proposes that languages work from a central processing system in the brain. These fundamental language skills form a common foundation for the learner and are transferred between languages, facilitating the process of language acquisition in the other language. The presentation is organized into the following sections: Introduction: presents the objectives of the presentation; Literature review: presents a brief introduction of the literature on bilingual writing development and the side-by-side writing model proposed by Escamilla et al. (2014); From theory to practice: describes the pilot project, lessons learned in the application of the pilot project, and a phased schoolwide implementation of the bilingual side-by-side writing assessment model. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This study explores the multilayered processes of language and literacy education in a dual language context. Here the author illuminates intentional instructional scaffolds implemented in a single 3^rd grade Spanish-English classroom throughout daily literacy events, which positively impacted students' assessment outcomes by consistently enhancing access to both content and language.

The purpose of this study is to understand how emergent bilingual students are afforded educational equity through equal access to literacy instruction. This study explored the multilayered processes of language and literacy education in dual-language contexts. The author illuminates intentional instructional scaffolds implemented in a single 3^rd-grade Spanish-English classroom throughout daily literacy events, which positively impacted students' assessment outcomes.

Intentional instructional scaffolds used and further explained in detail in this paper include: (1)consistently employing the framework of I do, we do, you do in all four language domains- the intentional scaffold of gradual release of responsibility affords students opportunities to see the model, to practice the model in a safe space, and then to independently attempt the task; (2)encouraging and accepting communication attempts, both speaking and in writing, freely from students in their L2; (3)offering daily intervention or instructional level texts and tasks for each student; (4)individual intensive instruction for students labeled as 2+ grade levels below the target; (5)daily story telling linking the academic language of the lesson through narration providing authentic oracy development; as well as (5)weekly progress monitoring and conferencing with students creating shared goals and next steps.

The findings in this study indicate that the intentional instructional scaffolds implemented in this class afforded students assess to both the content and language of literacy instruction. The majority of instruction in this classroom occurred in Spanish with the exception of math. Well over 90% of the literacy instruction also occurred in Spanish with the exception of the required ESL instructional time. Students in this study tested the highest of all 3^rd-grade students in their building as compared to English-only as well as other dual-language immersion classes. They were also among the highest 3^rd-grade averages in the entire district on the state assessment that was given in English.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This session focuses on the use of iPads as a tool for authentic language production in the elementary classroom and how this technology can be used to support early Spanish literacy as well as comprehension. We will show how apps, such as SEESAW and iMovie, enrich student language experiences.

   Riverview Elementary is home to a K-5 Spanish-English Dual Immersion program and is a 1 to 1 iPad school.  Our teachers have utilized technology in the classroom to support early literacy in Spanish as well as comprehension in the intermediate grades.  This session will cover practical uses of the iPad in supporting comprehensible input as well as authentic production of language.  Through the use of technology students are able to work on improving fluency, expanding vocabulary, utilizing thinking processes that promote language acquisition of both Spanish and English.

    For emergent readers and writers, we support student language and literacy learning, which includes reading syllables, initial and final sounds, letter-sound recognition and vocabulary expansion through the use of various FREE apps.  For example, in one first grade dual immersion classroom SEESAW, an electronic journal driven by student work, has been fully integrated into literacy instruction .  Students upload work samples, which allows teachers and families to provide feedback and maintain accountability.  Teachers and families verify and support students’ work in order to reinforce grade-level skills.

    For early established and established readers, technology is also used to support student language learning, but more importantly gives intermediate students an outlet for authentic language production. For example, iMovie is a platform through which students can publish finished products and dramatize written pieces in order to share with peers or other authentic audiences.  Multiple internet resources are utilized to build comprehension leading up to this final product, such as Keyboard text prediction, online dictionary, and Google images.

  We have found that digital technology supports student language acquisition through the use of  adaptive features that allow for purposeful and appropriate scaffolding.  In addition, digital technology enriches student language experiences due to the level of engagement enticed by producing language for authentic purposes.

Katherine Perron Pantano earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education and Spanish from the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minnesota.  She is currently pursuing a Master of Education in Interdisciplinary Studies with a Certificate in Dual Language and Immersion from the University of Minnesota.  As part of the Riverview Elementary Dual Immersion teaching team, Katherine has been an integral part of the development of the Two-Way Immersion program, now in its tenth year.  Over the past nine years, she has taught 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades and is currently serving as Riverview’s Instructional Coach.

First grade teacher, Ada Kristel Perez is from Puerto Rico and has being teaching for seven years. She has a bachelor degree in Early Education and pursuing a masters at Walden University with a concentration in Reading and Literacy k-6. Currently works at Riverveiw Elementary as a first grade dual immersion teacher. She uses the iPad app called SEESAW to engage students in enriched activities to increase language. 

Fifth grade dual immersion teacher, Yomarie Arroyo, is also from Puerto Rico and has been teaching 5th grade for three years and in Puerto Rico she taught 7-12 grade English for a year. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education and a minor in Secondary Education in the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao.  She uses iMovie in various ways to engage her fifth grade dual immersion students.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This discussion will share how Escondido Elementary in California created a master plan for its TWBI program after 20 years of existence and how the plan is being implemented as a living document that outlines the program's history, benefits, guiding principles, program pathways, instructional design, enrollment policies, and professional development.

This discussion will inform participants of how dual language programs can develop master plans and how these can serve to improve program outcomes. Particularly, we will share Escondido Elementary's journey  to create a master plan for its TWBI program after 20 years of existence. This was an initiative driven by teachers and administrators to develop a living document to guide the program in the years to come. The program is now in its first year of the implementation phase of the master plan and several changes and improvements have already been made. 

 The Spanish TWBI Program at Escondido Elementary, Ca. began in 1995 as a 90/10 model in grades k-5 but lacked a clear middle school pathway. Curriculum and instruction was driven mainly by teachers working in the program and there was very little oversight of the program at the district level. Driven by teacher request, in 2013, the school began working with consultant Rosa Molina on the development of a master plan for the program. To develop the master plan, a task force was formed by five teachers, the assistant principal, the principal, and consultant Rosa Molina. Once this document was completed, in the summer of 2015, the program began its implementation phase using many of the recommendations provided by the task force.

The development of the master plan uncovered many challenges in the program. Some of the challenges included lack of common understanding of the dual language framework by the teachers at the elementary and middle school level, disproportionate language instructional time, lack of buy in from higher district leaders, unrealistic parental expectations and lack of understanding of the program goals by some parents. Now that the master plan is in its implementation phase, most of these challenges have been addressed and a clear plan has been set to improve these areas.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

not specific language

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Since few Kansan schools have immersion options, we propose biography-driven instruction—a culturally responsive method that promotes differentiated instruction and student-teacher reciprocity—to create a classroom ecology in which code-switching and code-meshing are privileged.  Ultimately, we aim to discuss ways to prepare for bilingual immersion in contexts similar to Kansas. 

During the last decade, the number of English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in public schools has continued to increase nationwide.  In the 2012-13 school year, K-12 ELL enrollment stood at 4.85 million students, or approximately 10 percent of nation’s school population. Kansas has traditionally had a modest ELL population, though this has begun to change.  Between 2002-2003 and 2012-13, Kansas emerged as the state with the largest ELL growth nationwide at an increase of 4.9 percent.  In 2011-2012, Kansas reported enrollment of 41,052 ELLs in K-12 schools equaling 8.5 percent of all Kansan students (Condition of Education, 2015; NCES, 2015).

In Kansas, only five dual language schools exist, all within major cities: Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita.  It is widely acknowledged that two-way bilingual immersion programs best cultivate ELL academic potential. However, when factors such as sociopolitical climate and funding are unfavorable, other pedagogical solutions must be sought. 

Therefore, we suggest biography-driven instruction (Herrera, 2016)—a culturally responsive method that promotes differentiated instruction and student-teacher reciprocity—to create a classroom ecology in which code-switching and code-meshing are privileged, resulting in enhanced academic, linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural student outcomes. We intend to present the benefits of this method while simultaneously opening up discussion for other pedagogical options used in similar geographic and sociopolitical climates.

 Given that very few Kansan school districts have immersion options, two key questions emerge:

1. How can two-way bilingual immersion programs be initiated in districts with no immersion options?
2. In the absence of immersion options, what other instructional methods promote leveraging the learner’s L1/heritage language as a scaffold to improve student outcomes?

Ultimately, we aim to meet other two-way bilingual scholars and practitioners who are equipped with the knowledge and experiences to help district administrators, teachers, parents, students, and communities prepare for such programming. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study focuses on the efforts of one medium-sized school district in Southern California as it tries to improve its elementary and middle school Spanish dual language immersion program and expand into high school.

Research on dual-language immersion (DLI) programs (DLIP) continues to show significant benefits for both English language learners and native English speakers (Steele et al., 2015; Valentino & Reardon, 2015). Consequently, DLI programs are proliferating around the nation. This rapid growth poses challenges for school districts as they strive to meet demand. This study focuses on the efforts of one medium-sized school district in Southern California as it tries to improve its elementary and middle school Spanish DLI program and expand into high school.

This paper seeks to understand whether the Spanish DLI program, currently offered at two elementary and one middle school, is meeting the district's goals of bilingualism and bi-literacy, academic excellence, and multicultural understanding. In addition, it seeks to understand parental engagement and parental perceptions of program strengths and weaknesses. Lastly, the study seeks to explore whether teacher pipeline issues could pose challenges for program expansion. To do this, the study focuses on three research questions:

1. Which students are more likely to enroll in Spanish DLI and what are their outcomes? (Including progression through the program, academic, and EL reclassification)
2. What are teacher qualifications for DLI, and what can be said about the teacher pipeline for recruitment and retention into Spanish DLI?
3. What are parent perceptions and expectations around the program, its outcomes and characteristics?

To answer these questions researchers will collect data from student and teacher administrative records, and conduct teacher and administrator interviews, student surveys, and parent surveys and focus groups. The study will employ a mixed-methods approach. Results from this study can help other school districts as they seek to improve and expand their own DLI offerings beyond elementary and middle school. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Mandarin

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

At the end of each unit of study in a DLI Culture and Media class, 7th grade Chinese immersion students in America communicate with 7th grade English immersion students in Xi'an, China.  Students skype and blog in order to exchange and compare cultural experiences.                               

Finding authentic materials can be challenging for teachers of 7th grade Chinese immersion students.  Many materials are not age appropriate or relevant. However, communicating with 7th grade students in the target culture and sharing opinions about being a teenager can be very illuminating and relevant for students in both cultures, as well as a great source of authentic material.  In order for this to happen, sister school relationships were formed in both the US and China beginning in 2015. All of the students are one-way foreign language immersion students:  the American students study content in Mandarin, and the Chinese students study content in English. Students who are now at intermediate proficiency levels have the language capabilities to talk and write about their lives and opinions in the target language.  For example, they can discuss and compare school courses, extra curricular activities, family expectations and rules, holidays, and summer plans. Teachers prepare students for speaking and writing and also have follow-up activities to discuss cultural differences.  The hope is that students will form lasting relationships and gain understanding of the target cultural  before exchanges begin in the summer of 8th and 9th grade. 

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Not language specific though original research was conducted in Spanish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

What role should students' first language play in the immersion classroom? Is there a way to support immersion students as emerging bilinguals while getting them to use the target language more? A collaborative discussion based on original research on students’ motivation and ability to use the target language. 

This discussion session explores a controversial topic in immersion education – that of students’ first language (L1) use during the target language (TL) portion of the school day. Proponents of using the L1 in immersion classrooms claim that the L1 is an important cognitive tool that should be allowed. Many teachers  resist the idea of condoning L1 use in the classroom for fears that the L1 will become predominate.  Unfortunately, teacher opinions are not always seen as the most important voice in the debate.  The ideas that are held in common by all sides is that more research is needed and maximizing TL use is important. How do we go about this as teachers?

Based on the treatment sessions that I conducted with students in my research, we will collaboratively investigate the issue of L1 use in immersion and brainstorm strategies and scaffolds that we think would be useful to increase students’ ability to work through the TL.  Then I will outline the results that I obtained from classroom observation data and interviews.

Guiding questions will include: what value does students’ L1 have in your classroom? What strategies or methods have you found useful for promoting TL use in your classroom? What effect does L1 use and TL use have on students’ learning of the content and of the language?

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish/English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Looking for ways to boost students’ oral language proficiency and effective ways to assess it? Come learn about oral language production strategies to promote student-to-student conversation using academic language with integrated grammar, measured by various formative and summative language assessments. Examples given mostly in Spanish.

This session will focus on effectively promoting and assessing students’ academic oral language development in a 50/50 two-way dual immersion program. We will begin by highlighting how oral language development has been a neglected aspect of many dual language programs and then explain some of the reasons why and how our program has moved it to the forefront of our teaching. We will describe the strategies that we are using to assess our students’ abilities to use academic language.  The presentation will focus on oral proficiency assessments, including the one that we created using ACTFL’s guidelines, and speaking rubrics that measure formative growth. Additionally, we will outline specific activities geared towards promoting student conversation using academic language, including our implementation of Lyster’s Counterbalanced Approach in teaching grammar through content.  We will encourage attendees to ask questions and to share the oral language development strategies that they use. Participants will leave our session with effective resources to share and use in their classrooms and programs.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

In this session we will present findings from a mixed-methods study exploring language awareness, language ideologies and the relationship between the two amongst dual language immersion (DLI) educators in Utah, a state creating over 100 DLI schools. We will discuss how to apply our findings to create integrated professional development.

An important component of the teacher knowledge base is how aware a teacher is of language—its use, how it works as a system, and how it is best taught (Andrews, 2007; Garcia, 2008; Svalberg, 2007). Equally important are teacher beliefs about language or language ideologies (Alim, 2007; Kroskrity, 1998; Martínez, 2013).  Because this combination of beliefs and awareness guides most pedagogical decisions, our study used mixed methods to explore the teacher language awareness (TLA) and prevalent language ideologies of public-school educators working in dual language programs in Utah. The following research questions guided the study:  1) What degree of TLA do in-service educators working in dual language programs currently demonstrate?; 2) What are some prevalent language ideologies of in-service educators working in dual language programs?; and 3) How and to what extent do educator language ideologies vary by TLA domain?

The study took place in Dual Language Immersion (DLI) schools in Utah. The Utah context is unique due to its state-backed initiative to create over 100 dual-language immersion schools with the goal of creating bi-cultural, bi-literate students in Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, or Mandarin. Educators completed a language ideology survey (Fitzsimmons-Doolan, 2011) and language identification task. Teachers were selected based on ideological variation for follow-up semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data was analyzed via factor analysis and mixed ANOVA; qualitative data was analyzed via constant comparative coding and thematic analysis (Saldaña, 2009).

This study extends an understanding of the relationship between language awareness and ideologies.  Currently, much professional development for English learners focuses on classroom strategies only, without accounting for teachers’ underlying awareness and beliefs about language. In learning more about language awareness and ideologies, we will discuss how to apply our findings to create integrated professional development that addresses classroom practices, language awareness, and language ideologies. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English (L2) and Portuguese (L1)

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

In this session we will explore three research-based biliteracy tools used in a Brazilian immersion school to improve L2 output while strengthening L1: cross-language connections in a bilingual read-aloud project, strategies to foster better vocabulary development, and a "side-by-side" writing assessment tool.

This presentation will explore a second grade one-way immersion classroom in Brazil were we used the work of three researchers  to come up with  practices that would not only engage our students but also produce better language output in L2 and L1. 

Participants will first explore Dr. Roy Lyster's and Dr. Susan Ballanger's read-aloud project conducted in the Montreal area and how this applies to other school settings.  We will show how using the same book in two languages, delivered in sequence (chapter one in L1, 2 in L2 etc), would not only engage our young learners but create much more collaboration between the L1 and L2 language teachers.  We will examine some of the initial research that needed to be changed/adapted to fit our setting, and give participants some basic do’s and don’ts when setting up.  Our results show that students were highly engaged and we were better able to teach reading skillls. 

From here we will look at Dr. Isabella Beck’s work ‘3 tiers’ of vocabulary and how this relates to helping our students become better readers in the L2 classroom.  This will be a critical step in the process to alert participants to the importance of planning and pre-selecting words to teach in immersions as well as in L1. 

Finally we will look at how we went from reading to writing (balanced literacy) and then assessed students output using Dr. Kathy Escamilla’s ‘side-by-side’ writing tool.  Essential here is to show what from this work translates well to immersion and what does not.  

Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing Words to Life, Second Edition: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. The Guilford Press.

Escamilla, K., Hopewell, S., Sandra, B., Wendy, S., Lucinda, S.-G., & Olivia, R.-F. (2014). Biliteracy from the Start; Literacy Squared in Action. Philadelphia, USA: Caslon Publishing.

Fortune, T., & Tedick, D. (2001). The Six Prototypical Written Text Types (Genres) of Schooling. MN, USA: Handout in the CobalTT Summer Institute for Teachers.

Lyster, R. Collins, L., Ballanger, S. (2009).  Linking languages through a bilingual read-aloud project.  Langugage Awareness Journal Vol. 18, No. 3–4, August–November 2009, 366–383

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Maori language

Indigenous Language Immersion

Post-Secondary

At the University of Waikato, New Zealand we are celebrating the 25^th anniversary of Te Tohu Paetahi (First Bachelor’s Degree) program, a Maori language immersion program within a mainstream university. Some of the important aspects of a successful program involve having a sustainable curriculum, quality teachers, and a supportive institution.  

At the University of Waikato, New Zealand we are proud to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Te Tohu Paetahi (First Bachelor’s Degree) program, a Maori language immersion program within a mainstream university. This program represented a response to concerns about the future of te reo M?ori/the Maori language in a context where inter-generational transmission was severely limited and the number of fluent or native speakers seemed inadequate to ensure a viable future for the Maori language.  With more than a thousand students experiencing the Te Tohu Paetahi program and its successes, and since its inception in 1991 it’s hard to believe it has gone through very minimal change.  However, still in practice is the rigorous interview process of each student to ascertain eligibility for the establishment of a supportive whanau (family)-based learning environment, bearing in mind they will be together for up ten months.  In the first year of study, Te Tohu Paetahi students focus exclusively on te reo Maori in an intensive fast track immersion context which provides them with more exposure to the language than would be possible in the case of mainstream students, the aim being to provide that “quantity and quality of involvement” that Johnson and Swain (1997, p. xiii) associate with immersion programmes.   

This presentation will discuss some of the aspects that have made this program successful, attractive, and sustainable and still in high demand throughout the country.  I would argue that some of the most important aspects of a successful program would involve having a sustainable curriculum that is well resourced, teachers of the highest teaching quality, and capabilities, and having the full academic and administrative support of the institution.    

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

multiple

This symposium brings together notable immersion researchers from the U.S. and Canada to examine the topic of biliteracy development from a variety of perspectives and contexts, including cross-linguistic associations, predictors of risk for L2 reading difficulty, and program model differences in bilingual writing development.

Biliteracy Development in Immersion Education: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Intersections

Symposium organized by 

Meleidis Gort, University of Colorado - Boulder

Biliteracy, or the development of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking competencies in more than one language, is the outcome of a multifaceted and dynamic process, and a greater and more complex form of literacy than monoliteracy. It is made that much more complex because language acquisition takes place in a wide range of social contexts in which variation is the norm, and languages and literacies are in a state of constant evolution. Degrees of fluency and expertise vary across contexts, domains, and languages and are expressed along a range of continua (Grosjean, 2008; Hornberger, 1989). While international attention to biliteracy is growing, most of what we know about the development of biliteracy in immersion programs comes from U.S.-based studies dedicated to measuring how well emerging bilingual learners acquire English and English language literacy, particularly in the domain of reading (Rolstad, Mahoney, & Glass, 2005; Slavin & Cheung, 2005) and Canadian-based studies looking at English-speaking students’ bilingual and biliteracy outcomes in French immersion programs. This symposium brings together notable immersion researchers from the U.S. and Canada to examine the topic of biliteracy development from a variety of perspectives and contexts, including cross-linguistic associations among early elementary emerging bilinguals in Spanish/English parochial immersion programs, predictors of risk for L2 reading difficulty in early total French immersion programs, and program model differences in upper elementary immersion students’ English and Spanish writing development. Collectively, these studies identify and further clarify a range of trajectories to biliteracy in relation to existing theoretical orientations, thereby extending and deepening our understanding of biliterate development across immersion education contexts. The symposium will culminate with a critical discussion of pedagogical and policy implications of the research, as well as future directions for biliteracy research in immersion education programs.

Cross-linguistic Relations among Bilingual and Biliterate Learners: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Convergences

C. Patrick Proctor, Qianqian Zhang and Cristina Hunter, Boston College

In this presentation, the authors have three broad aims. The first aim is to provide an overview of the major theoretical orientations relevant to cross-linguistic associations among bilingual learners. The second aim is to review the extant empirical literature to explore cross-linguistic findings in relation to existing theoretical orientations. The final aim is to provide a set of exploratory longitudinal empirical analyses grounded in findings from Aims 1 and 2. Data are taken from the Two-Way Immersion (TWI) Network for Catholic Schools, and focus specifically on Spanish and English language and literacy development among dual language learners in the early elementary grades (K–2).

Predicting Risk for Second Language Reading Difficulty in Early Immersion Students

Fred Genesee, McGill University

Research on immersion programs, in Canada, the U.S., and Europe has shown that they are generally effective in promoting high levels of functional proficiency in a second language (L2) without jeopardizing students’ first language (L1) or academic development. In order for all students to benefit from bilingualism, it is essential that we have a better scientific understanding of individual differences in student achievement in immersion-type programs and, of particular importance, that we can identify at-risk L2 readers early. This presentation will summarize the results of a longitudinal study (K-3) that sought to identify correlates of individual differences in the L2 reading achievement that can be used to predict risk for later L2 reading impairment. The study was carried out with English-speaking students in an early total French immersion program. Results will be discussed in terms of theoretical models of L2 reading development, early diagnosis of difficulty in L2 reading in immersion programs, and the possibility of early intervention.

Program Model Differences in the Spanish and English Writing Development of Two-way Immersion Students

Elizabeth Howard, University of Connecticut

Drawing on two longitudinal studies of TWI students in the upper elementary grades, this paper contributes to the research base on program model differences by investigating potential differences in English and Spanish writing development. In English, findings from Study 1 confirm earlier findings of an initial advantage for 50/50 students that disappears by 5th grade; however, findings from Study 2 show persistent significant differences favoring 50/50 students through 5th grade. In Spanish, findings from Study 1 likewise replicate earlier studies by showing a consistent, significant difference favoring 90/10 students all grade levels; in contrast, while findings from Study 2 likewise demonstrate a significant difference favoring 90/10 students at all grade levels, there is evidence that the gap is closing over time. During the presentation, these findings will be described in greater detail, and potential reasons for these differences will be explored.

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

Multiple

Despite the diverse and dynamic nature of immersion programs worldwide, the formulation of a coherent pedagogy of integrated language and content instruction remains a common challenge. Through a variety of perspectives from around the globe, this symposium explores how immersion teacher preparation and development addresses this issue.

Educational Innovations in Immersion Teacher Preparation and Development

Symposium organized by

T.J. Ó Ceallaigh, University of Limerick

The supply of teachers with the mandatory linguistic and cultural competencies and associated pedagogical practices is a key driver of successful immersion programs across a variety of models e.g., one-way second/foreign language immersion; co-official/regional language immersion; two-way bilingual immersion; one-way developmental bilingual education; and Indigenous language immersion. Immersion teacher preparation and development therefore, is a critical step in the evolution of effective language immersion education globally. However, there is a significant dearth of research “on a wide variety of topics relating to teacher development” in immersion (Tedick & Wesely, 2015). One such topic is that of language and content integration, a topic which is central to the process of understanding immersion teaching and learning.

Despite the diverse and dynamic nature of immersion programs worldwide, the formulation of a coherent pedagogy of integrated language and content instruction remains a common pedagogical challenge. A deep understanding of the critical connection between language and content is one component of the particular immersion-specific knowledge base and pedagogical skill set required by the immersion teacher. This component is deserving of attention and needs to be systematically addressed across the continuum of immersion teacher education and development (Cammarata & Tedick, 2012; Genesee & Lindholm-Leary, 2013; Lyster, 2007; Ó Ceallaigh, 2013).

In this symposium, a range of research-driven programs, initiatives and innovations in immersion teacher preparation and development from around the globe will be discussed in an attempt to explore the following inter-related questions:

• What are the theoretical and methodological underpinnings that provide the basis for a deep understanding of language and content integration in immersion?
• What immersion-specific knowledge base and pedagogical skill set do teachers need to acquire in order to integrate language and content instruction systematically and effectively in immersion?
• What are the essential properties of an immersion teacher education program which facilitate the development of such pedagogies?
• How are such programs designed, resourced, implemented and evaluated?

Integrating Language and Content in Immersion Pedagogy: New Avenues in Teacher Education

T.J. Ó Ceallaigh, University of Limerick

This paper reports on how a curriculum specialisation in content and language integration in immersion, focusing on the teaching of history in an Irish-medium immersion classroom, supported pre-service primary teachers in bridging the language and content gap in immersion education. The research study utilised Lesson Study as a structural framework to design history lessons in immersion settings. Qualitative data were collected from a variety of sources. Findings provide unique insights into the complexities of designing and implementing content lessons in immersion settings. This research provides evidence pointing to the effectiveness of the Lesson Study process as indicated by the enhanced understandings, shared expertise, knowledge accumulation and fresh pedagogical perspectives demonstrated by participants.

Exploring Teacher Educators’ Experience with Content and Language Integration

Laurent Cammarata, University of Alberta

Martine Cavanagh, University of Alberta - Campus Saint Jean 

Sylvie Blain, Université de Moncton - Campus de Moncton Pavillon

 Despite our increased awareness of the importance of providing a balanced instructional focus on form and meaning across the immersion curriculum, immersion teachers’ practice remains relatively unchanged today. Part of the problem, we argue, lies in the lack of research interest and focus on teacher educators whose role is central when it comes to operationalizing the changes called for by research and theorizing in the field. This qualitative study attempted to bridge this gap in our understanding by tapping the experience of two teams of Canadian teacher educators charged with the responsibility of preparing future generations of immersion and francophone in minority settings teachers. Preliminary findings suggest that 1) teacher educators’ perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the role language plays within the learning of varied disciplines affect their ability to prepare student teachers to implement a well-integrated approach, and 2) increased research on teacher educators’ experience and knowledge is needed.

Student Teachers’ Reflections on Content and Language Integration

Siv Björklund and Karita Mård-Miettinen, University of Vaasa 

In autumn 2014 a new pre-service programme in immersion education was set up in Finland. As to immersion-related studies, the students are offered both theoretical and practical courses in immersion pedagogy. The program also includes four teaching practices in immersion schools during which the student teachers are asked to focus on various immersion-specific issues and to reflect upon them in a reflection report. In our paper we will address the students’ reflections related to one of the most central features in immersion teaching, the integration of content and language teaching. The data were collected during the academic year of 2015-2016 and consist of the students’ individual written reflection reports (6 students, 24 reports) and group discussions (3 groups @ 20-30 minutes) based on individual reports. In the analysis a narrative research approach is used to show shared and individual voices on the integration of content and language teaching among students.

Perspectives Enlightening Indigenous Teacher Preparation

Makalapua Alencastre, University of Hawaii at Hilo

This presentation will contribute an understanding of the practices and issues within an Indigenous model of teacher preparation for Hawaiian language medium-immersion educators. Recent research findings provide insights into the overall efficacy of this model as it has evolved into a distinct pathway for teacher preparation in Hawaii. Nurturing the mauli ola Hawaii, the Hawaiian cultural identity as individuals as well as collectively, is the essential fiber connecting and building the capacity of this community of educators. Within this context, practices are highly reliant on engaging the Native Hawaiian community in order to afford the cultural and academic expertise of cultural practitioners, university faculty, and school-based mentor teachers. Examples of distinctive practices aimed at cultural growth and professional learning will illustrate how cultural values and knowledge promote Hawaiian language proficiency, cultural competence, and pedagogy skills throughout the preparation program.

Exploring Teacher Perceptions of Immersion Professional Development Experiences

Diane J. Tedick, University of Minnesota 

Although there is a growing body of research on immersion pedagogy (see Lyster & Tedick, 2014 for discussion), there is a dearth of research on professional development experiences that positively impact immersion teacher practices. This presentation will report on a portion of a larger study focused on exploring immersion teacher perceptions of professional development experiences that have a positive impact on their teaching. Emphasis will be on experiences that are designed to assist teachers in integrating language and content. Data sources included an extensive online survey, individual interviews, and focus groups. Findings point to specific features of high impact assignments and experiences. For example, teachers identified aspects such as authenticity and relevance, awareness-raising potential, and motivation and challenge. They especially extoled experiences that have an immediate yet lasting impact on student learning. The presentation will conclude with implications for designing meaningful and effective professional development experiences.

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

German

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Our presentation includes three components: curriculum planning, assessment, and student support. We will address our vertical-horizontal curriculum alignment and the development and implementation of screeners and data-based decision making for one-way German immersion students in a public Minnesota charter school (K-8), involving our School-Wide Support Team, teachers, staff and parents.

With Growing Pains Come Opportunities: Curriculum Planning, Assessment, and Student Support at the Twin Cities German Immersion School (K-8)

From 44 students in 2005 to 478 in 2016, our school has morphed from a small public charter school to a larger K-8, soon bursting at its seams in its third school building in the Como Park Neighborhood. This increased growth required us to focus on aligning our curriculum vertically and horizontally, assessing our students in language-, math-, and content- skills; and providing student support in the areas of literacy, math and behavior.

We will provide a brief background of some of the challenges the TCGIS has been faced with in order to focus on the opportunities of building a K-through 8- aligned curriculum taught by German and American English native speakers from various cultural and educational backgrounds. Assessing our students as primarily foreign language learners and as Minnesota students required to pass state-mandated tests is a huge undertaking. Our assessment model for K-8, which is in its early implementation stages, has been chosen to provide background information about students’ skills and abilities, particularly in literacy, math, and social emotional learning to provide baseline data and information about students in need of support. Our growing school is using this opportunity to set up multiple tiers in literacy, math, English and behavior to help struggling students in all grades. With the help of a newly formed School Wide Support Team, which includes specialists in the fields of language acquisition/curriculum planning, literacy, and psychology, internal structures are built to filter out those students who struggle. These include teacher- and parent- involvement, across-the board school-wide buy- in, as well as comprehensive data collection.  

Michael Mullins, Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator, TCGIS

My portion of this presentation is action research, in which I describe the successful academic situation at the Twin Cities German Immersion School in terms of test scores and school rankings as well as its short comings. Among them a) The lack of collaboration among faculty, administration, and specialists  in regard to curriculum content b) The lack of collaboration among faculty and specialists in regard to student assessment and intervention and c) The creation of structures that allow teachers to learn from each other and exchange  information about their most needy students. Our approach to a vertical and horizontal alignment across the school goes beyond the traditional ‘what’ and ‘when’ of lesson planning by including the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ It is part of a larger Teaching/Learning Mapping Strategy developed by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory.

Gesa Zinn, Literacy Specialist, TCGIS

In close cooperation with the goals and objectives in our curriculum mapping, I am responsible for the design and implementation of assessment tools in the area of literacy (primarily German literacy). While I will briefly address how students are assessed in other areas (English, math, behavior), my focus is on German language skills and the tools used to: a) establish a baseline of student literacy in the minority language, b) screen struggling students that profit from short- term interventions and c) provide Tier 2 interventions for struggling learners. Based on research by K. Kohnert and A. Petzold, second language learners acquiring the language of instruction share similar general traits (in behavior and language skills) with students with language disorders and/or learning disabilities. While our assessments and interventions aim to identify and support struggling students, they also provide valuable information to indicate ‘late bloomers’ and those with a language disorder or disability.

Kirsten Newell, School Psychologist and practicum student, TCGIS

The specialists at TCGIS, whom I represent, are working to build multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) for students.  A MTSS model requires educators make decisions based on systematic data gathering (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006). This data-based decision making is used to identify whether the general education curriculum is functioning well, which students need extra support or intervention, and whether those extra supports or interventions are working for students (Fuchs et al., 2003). Our biggest hurdle in implementation has been in streamlining our data-based decision making process, particularly as we struggle to align assessments with interventions in the right language. We have made some progress in procedures to differentiate students in need of differentiated instruction (Tier I), students in need of targeted intervention (Tier II), and students who have a disorder or disability and are in need of intensive services such as Special Education (Tier III).

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Chinese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This study focuses on whether 5th grade Chinese immersion students benefit from morphological awareness instruction. Data analysis of pre-, post-, and delayed post-assessments show students in the experimental group outperforming those in the comparison group. Accuracy and complexity analysis shows intermediate level students benefit more than those in other levels.

A recent study focused on the effects of biliteracy instruction on Grade 2 French immersion students’ morphological awareness in French and English (Lyster, Quiroga & Ballinger, 2013). It demonstrated in general that students’ morphological awareness improved significantly as a result of the instructional intervention. The experimental group outperformed the comparison group in French and also in English when language dominance was accounted for. That is, the English-dominant students’ performance on tests in English was significantly better than their counterparts’ performance in the comparison group. Such results are quite promising, yet it is unclear whether we might expect similar results in studies conducted in contexts where the target language is not cognate with English (such as Chinese or Japanese). This study is a quasi-experimental, mixed methods classroom intervention study that investigated the effects of biliteracy instruction on Grade 5 Chinese immersion students’ morphological awareness. A pair of partner teachers (Chinese/English) co-designed with the researcher biliteracy tasks for one group of students. The tasks took place during instruction in Chinese and English and integrated a linguistic focus on compound words in an illustrated storybook used for social studies instruction. Before and after the intervention, these Grade 5 students (n=27) and a comparison group (n=26) were tested on parallel measures of morphological awareness, receptive vocabulary, and reading comprehension in both Chinese and English. Quantitative analyses (t-tests and correlations) on test results and qualitative methods (observations and interviews) were used to explore whether students’ morphological awareness improved as a result of the intervention. The study is currently in progress and results are not yet available, however complete findings will be shared at the presentation.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Spanish

This project addresses the need of one foreign language teacher to more effectively serve his 10^th grade blended Spanish heritage and immersion learners class. Within prescribed curriculum, he enriched the deconstruction of Calle 13’s song Latinoamérica with critical, multimodal analysis. Instruction of form was guided by the counterbalanced approach.

“Teaching this blended class has been by far the biggest professional challenge of my career”.  Quotes such as this illuminate the challenge as High School foreign language classes increasingly blend immersion graduates with heritage language learners.  Grammar-driven units lack linguistically complex and cognitively compelling content, often communicating essentialized representations of Latino cultural identity resulting in high attrition of students and teachers.  This object of study is this teacher's enrichment of a prescribed curriculum aimed to critically engage cultural and linguistic resources of his students, and more broadly affirm multilingual communities within school walls.  The study took place in a 10th grade blended class of 1-way immersion and heritage Spanish speakers studying a U of MN curriculum.  With the goal of infusing academic, language arts content, students applied a critical media analysis of the hip hop song Latinoamérica by Calle 13 and artists’ representation of Latinamerican identity through personification, metaphor and intertextuality.  Integrated throughout was study of conjunctions + subjunctive or indicative through noticing, awareness and practice tasks (Lyster, 2007).  Students then chose a song text and video of artists who, through signs and symbols, illuminated the voices of marginalized to communicate a transformative message.  With this song text they applied their own critical media analysis.  Questions included:  How can a critical interpretation of the Cultures and Communities standard (ACTFL.org) draw out student cultural and youth funds of knowledge and engage their transnational identities?  What impact did the counterbalanced approach to focus have on student language?  What were the teacher’s perceptions of this approach to teaching these groups?  This project aspires to expand pedagogical options for teachers of blended classes of Immersion graduates and Heritage Spanish Speakers in a secondary setting.   

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Swedish/Finnish and French/English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This poster presentation will present an ongoing doctoral study about the immersion teacher profession in Finland and Canada. It will give an overview of the aim, methods and data of the study and present some theoretical aspects of the qualities of the immersion teacher.

The aim of my doctoral study is to explore what it means to be an immersion teacher. I’m interested in the teachers’ views and perceptions of the immersion teacher profession and immersion education, and how the immersion teachers position themselves professionally. Answers to these questions will help to get a picture of the teachership in immersion. 

The target group in my study will be class teachers (grades 1–6) in one-way early total Swedish immersion in Finland and French immersion in Canada. Finland and Canada are selected because these countries have long traditions of one-way immersion programs and immersion teacher education programs. In the first phase of the study, data will be collected through questionnaires to get a general view from a larger group of teachers, and the second phase will consist of case studies including written life stories, interviews and diaries to get a deeper understanding of the teachership.

The immersion teacher profession is challenging particularly because of the teacher’s double role, including teaching of both language and content at the same time (Björklund, Mård-Miettinen & Turpeinen 2007). Therefore, the immersion teacher needs to have certain qualities (see e.g. Obadia 1998). This serves as a starting point for my poster presentation, where I present some theoretical aspects of the qualities of the immersion teacher and give an overview of my own ongoing study. My research is part of a larger project, which studies the interplay between language practices, multilingual identity and language ideologies in immersion.

References

Björklund, S., Mård-Miettinen, K. & Turpeinen, H. (2007). Kielikylpykirja – Språkbadsboken. Vaasa: Levón-instituutti.

Obadia, A. A. (1998). An international overview of immersion programmes. In J. Arnau & J. M. Artigal (Red.). Els Programmes d’immersió: una Perspectiva Europea. Immersion Programmes: a European Perspective. Barcelona: Publications de la universitat de Barcelona. 80–93.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Swedish in Swedish immersion and Irish in Irish immersion

An ongoing doctoral study examines how immersion pupils in one-way early total Swedish and Irish immersion manifest their linguistic identities. Particularly, the interfaces between identity construction and writing of schoolscapes are explored. This poster presentation gives an overview of the data collection, methodological approaches and expected results.

One of the key features of one-way early total Swedish immersion in Finland is an early introduction of L3 and L4 in addition to the L1 (Finnish) and the L2 (Swedish) which gives the programme its multilingual characteristic. In Ireland, one-way early total Irish immersion is characterised by high language intensity in the L2, meaning that 85 % of instruction is given through the medium of Irish.

The purpose of the poster presentation is to present my ongoing doctoral study of interfaces between schoolscapes and identity construction among 10–15-year-old immersion pupils. Schoolscapes, i.e. linguistic landscapes of school-based environments, refer for example to written languages displayed on the walls. In the study, the emphasis is placed on how writing (multilingual) schoolscapes within these two immersion programmes affects pupils’ manifestations of their linguistic identities.

The data of this ethnographic study will consist of photographs describing the schoolscapes of one dual-track Swedish immersion school and one Irish immersion centre, interviews of eighteen immersion pupils and field notes collected under non-participant classroom observations. Pupils’ participation in writing of the schoolscapes will be analysed through text histories (Lillis & Curry 2010). The interview data will be approached via interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith & Osborn 2003).

To elucidate the purpose of and the methodological approaches in the doctoral study I’ll present results of a pilot study conducted in one Swedish immersion classroom.  

My doctoral study is part of a new project at the University of Vaasa. Within the project, the interplay between language praxis, multilingual identity and language ideology in Swedish immersion is studied.

References:

Lillis, T. & M. J. Curry (2010). Academic writing in a global context. London: Routledge.

Smith, J. A. & M. Osborn (2003). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In J. A. Smith (Ed.) Qualitative psychology. A practical guide to methods. London: Sage. 53–80.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Swedish/Finnish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This poster presentation will discuss an ongoing doctoral study on family language policy in the context of Swedish language immersion in Finland. The presentation includes an overview of the aim, data and methods as well as some early results of the study.

In my poster presentation I will discuss my ongoing doctoral study on family language policy in the context of one-way early total Swedish immersion education in Finland. Family language policy (FLP) is a growing area of research, which examines language ideologies, language practices and language management within the family domain (see King 2013: 49-50). Applying a family language policy perspective within immersion education research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the linguistic and cultural socialization of the immersion student, which takes place in school as well as in the family domain simultaneously.

The aim of my study is to provide insight into the motivational orientations of the parents choosing immersion education for their children as well as the dynamics of parental involvement in their children’s education. I further seek to uncover the language ideological underpinnings of these parental efforts and practices. A further interest is the children’s potential agentive roles in shaping the linguistic ideologies and practices of the family.

Previous research on families within Swedish language immersion in Finland is almost exclusively based on questionnaire data (see e.g. Bergroth 2007), whereas my study applies a mixed methods approach (questionnaire, group discussions and thematic life stories), aiming to provide deeper insight into the backgrounds, ideologies and experiences of families in language immersion.

In my presentation I will give an overview of the aim, data collection and methods as well as some early results of my study. My study is part of a larger project, which explores the interplay between language practices, multilingual identity and language ideologies in language immersion.

References:

Bergroth, M. (2007). Kielikylpyperheet valokeilassa. Taustat ja odotukset. Selvityksiä ja raportteja 145. Vaasan yliopisto.

King, K.A. (2013). A Tale of Three Sisters: Language Ideologies, Identities, and Negotiations in a Bilingual, Transnational Family. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7, 49–65.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Swedish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

High School

This poster presentation will discuss immersion students’ L2 writing in the Finnish matriculation examination after upper secondary schooling. The main focus is on a functional model of language, the notion of register and grammatical metaphor and aspects related to the three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, textual).

Since 1987 monolingual Finnish-speaking parents have been able to choose one-way early total Swedish immersion for their children. Besides learning to read and write in a second language immersion pupils also learn the content of school subjects in L2. Advanced literacy in different areas of the curriculum across the phases of learning is important in developing knowledge and understanding.

My doctoral study is part of the project Student writing competence. The purpose of the project is to identify what texts and types of multimodal texts are produced by 11−18-year old students in 3 different classroom contexts in Finland and Sweden and to analyze different evaluation criteria for students' written L1 and L2 -texts.

The overall aim of my research is to study second language writing development among language immersion students between the ages of 12−19 in Finland. The data collection consists of L2 writers' texts in different text genres. L2 writing data were produced by language immersion students during lessons (grades 6−9) and by candidates for the Finnish matriculation examination in years 2012−2014. The approach of the study draws on the systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theory (e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen 2004).

In my poster presentation I will concentrate on the immersion students’ L2 -writings in the Finnish matriculation examination after upper secondary schooling. The main focus is on a functional model of language, the notion of register and grammatical metaphor and aspects related to the three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, textual) (Christie & Derewianka 2008, Christie 2012).

References

Christie, Frances (2012). Language Education Throughout the School Years: A Functional Perspective. UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Christie, Frances & Beverly Derewianka (2008). School discourse. UK: Continuum.

Halliday, M.A.K. & Matthiessen, C.(2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3^rd ed.) New York: Arnold.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Korean L1/English L2

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Although English immersion programs for Korean children in South Korea began 20 years ago, they have not yet been described in detail. This project places such programs in the global immersion context, using autoethnography and document analysis to paint a rich picture of the design and daily realities of one school.

Research has long shown L2 immersion to be an effective way for many children to learn a second language, and such programs began appearing in South Korea in the mid-1990s, offering at least 50 percent of instruction in English to native Korean-speaking children. While Jeon (2012) gives a useful overview of forms of English immersion education in South Korea, surprisingly little scholarship in English or Korean has looked in detail at the design and daily operation of English immersion programs for school-age children as actually practiced in the Korean context. (Shin 2015, in Korean, provides a somewhat detailed description of one program’s history and structure.) This is an undertaking that is likely only to become more difficult as previously warm official attitudes toward English immersion education have chilled under the current government of President Park Geun Hye, driving some such schools to conceal their immersion programs under the guise of after-school enrichment.

This project combines autoethnography and document analysis to examine the structure and practice of immersion education at one Seoul immersion elementary school (molip chodeung hakgyo) from an insider’s point of view. With the support of lesson plans, e-mail communications, newsletters, journal entries, and other contemporary documentation, four years of one teacher’s experience are examined based on core features of immersion programs as described by Johnson and Swain (1997), and the school’s design and daily realities are illumined. In this way, the Korean iteration of additive immersion education can be better understood in the context of international conceptions of immersion education, and strengths of and challenges for the practice of immersion in the Korean context are made clearer.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

French Immersion

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

High School

The word is the object: in L2 output, overuse of high-frequency words and optimal word selection are problematic. Furthermore, explicit vocabulary instruction is not promoted in typical language curricula. This research tests a compelling new approach to vocabulary enrichment. Its goal: lexical competence through linguistic exploration of the lexicon.

When second-language (L2) learners speak and write, their primary lexical task is the appropriate use of their available vocabulary. However, overuse of high-frequency words, coupled with the challenge of optimal word selection for a given context, compromise the effectiveness of L2 learners’ output. Troublingly, strategic, explicit vocabulary instruction is not promoted in typical Canadian French Immersion (FI) curricula. How then are students to enrich their L2 vocabulary?

FI education in Canada has been a prized program since the 1970s. Its participants enjoy demonstrated cognitive, academic and social advantages (Cummins, 1983; Jedwab, 2003; Genesee, 2004; Rehorick et al., 2006). Typically, Anglophone students take most academic subjects in L2 French, with the ambition of becoming bilingual and bicultural citizens in a nation where an English majority and a French minority coexist. This is equally the case in New Brunswick on Canada’s East Coast. For that province’s Anglophone students, however, annual FI literacy test scores consistently prove mediocre at best. Writing results in vocabulary, syntax and grammar all fall well below targeted levels. Our question: can all three deficiencies be remedied by systematically targeting the first?

J. Picoche’s (1993a, 2002) actanciel approach to vocabulary instruction aims to develop lexical competence through the explicit linguistic exploration of the lexicon. A word, typically high-frequency and polysemous, is mined for its linguistic riches:  synonyms, antonyms, derivations, collocations, figurative uses. The word itself becomes the object of study, framed in syntactic and semantic relationships. This innovative method equips learners with the linguistic tools to strengthen and broaden their vocabulary. Originally developed for L1 students, the approach has not yet been attempted in a Canadian FI classroom. We believe its potential is compelling.

Our research develops and tests an actanciel toolkit for the FI classroom, examining its application and the merit of systematic vocabulary instruction for L2 learners. 

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Projecting an increasing diversity within the student population of Mandarin immersion, this research presents interview and survey data outlining parental motivations and perceived benefits across different racial groups.  It will address barriers to diversity in the classroom and methods of strengthening relationships with students and parents of all backgrounds.

This research examines how American parents are embracing bi-lingual and bi-cultural proficiency through increasing enrollment in Mandarin Immersion Programs.  The author presents the results of an investigation of the following questions: What are the motivations for parents in enrolling their child in Mandarin Immersion Programs and do they vary across racial groups?  Does Mandarin Chinese hold greater value with respect to other language and immersion programs?  If so, what is the cultural significance? 

The analyses utilize a mixed-method approach, first using survey data (N=500) to assess the strength of cross-cultural and language ties through both open and close-ended questions.  Secondly to support the quantitative research findings, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with White, Asian, Black, and Mixed-Race parents of children enrolled in Mandarin Immersion; supplemented with dozens of conversational exchanges between parents, teachers, and administrators at various educational sites.  The interviews spoke to the challenges of an unfamiliar pedagogy in exchange for the perceived benefits of an enhanced cross-cultural and cognitive awareness.

The study found that the majority of parents did not have a strong connection with China or the language but were aware of the benefits of bilingualism discourse.  There was no significance overall difference between racial groups and what they expect for their children in Mandarin Immersion.  The survey spoke to cultivating bi-cultural attitudes, challenging children academically, and to better prepare them for future success.  The qualitative data reports White parents speaking of the future investment, Black parents of identity and diversity, while Asian parents gave cultural heritage as key reasons for child enrollment.  These findings call into question the influence of a minority immigrant institution on the dominant host community.  Suggesting that due to East Asian educational success parents are expanding beyond the boundaries of ethnocentrism, and placing a high value on Mandarin and language in general. 

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

English and Mandarin

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

High School

This study investigates a newly emerging English immersion model in China where foreign high school curricula are taught by native English-speaking teachers to local Chinese students. These foreign teachers’ beliefs and interaction with students in lessons were investigated regarding the facilitation of students’ learning of both science and English language.

Teaching academic subjects through English in countries where English is not an official language has become a rapidly rising global phenomenon (Macaro, 2015). In China, driven by the increasing demand from Chinese students to study abroad at the university level and a growing population of foreign teachers, a special English immerion program has emerged. It entails foreign native English speaking teachers teaching Chinese students a foreign high school curriculum. This context presents a unique English immersion model worthy of investigation because of the monolingual native English speaking teacher population, as opposed to the bilingual non-native teachers commonly found in the previous English immersion literature. This study makes an innovative inter-disciplinary attempt in examining teachers' beliefs and practice in this unexplored English immersion model, drawing on theories and teaching approaches in both science education and language education.

Underpinned by Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory (1986), teacher-student interaction was chosen as the key focus in investigating teachers’ beliefs and practice. Theories and teaching approaches guiding this study include the constructivist teaching approach (Hohenstein & Manning, 2010) and Dialogic Teaching (Mercer and Littleton, 2007), well developed in science education, and the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996), established in second language acquisition. Data was gathered using questionnaires, pre- and post-lesson interviews and lesson observations, involving 7 schools across China, 18 foreign science teachers, and approximately 400 students. 36 lessons were video recorded and transcribed. 

Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, initial findings suggest most teachers held constructivist beliefs of teaching science and favourable beliefs of teaching English. However, some constructivist beliefs were successfully translated into practice while others were not. The use of extensive dialogues in facilitating students' learning of science and English proves to be difficult, partly due to students' low English proficiency and culturally different expectations of the rule of talk. The challenges and opportunities the learning of science and English brings to each other are discussed.

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Spanish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Middle School/Junior High

This study discusses three salient transfer errors identified in the L2 of a sixth grade Spanish immersion student. The targeted errors may represent a plateau in the learner’s interlanguage and are noticeable candidates for intensive error treatment. Possible pedagogical strategies will be shared.

Considerable prior research shows that although students acquiring an L2 through immersion programs develop high levels of proficiency, particularly in their receptive skills, their output is marked with non-target like structures (Lindholm-Leary & Genesee, 2014). This study continues this work by examining instances of native language transfer in the Spanish L2 of an English Home Language sixth-grade student who has studied in a one-way Spanish immersion program. Data were collected through natural speech production elicited by referential tasks. Most notable among the transfer errors identified are cases of lexical transfer, preposition stranding, and the misuse and misplacement of the 3^rd person, singular direct object pronoun lo ‘it’. Given the participant’s seven years in an immersion program, it is possible that these errors have reached a plateau or potentially fossilized in the interlanguage. These phenomena might occur readily in an immersion dialect due to the compounding factors of salience in the input from other students sharing an L1 (Harley & Swain, 1984) and the linguistic identity of immersion students (Tarone & Swain, 1995). Due to their potential fossilization, the errors identified in this study are particularly noticeable candidates for intensive error treatment in the classroom. The results will be discussed in respect to their salience in the participant’s output as well as potential pedagogical strategies for error treatment. 

Laptop Poster Session for Graduate Students

Not language specific - original research was conducted in Spanish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Use of the students’ first language during the target language portion of the school day remains controversial. To gain insight on this issue I conducted collaborative treatment sessions with third graders to aid in their ability to work through the target language. My research and other strategies will be shared.

This paper presentation explores a controversial topic in immersion education: use of the students’ first language (L1) during the target language (TL) portion of the school day. Proponents of using the L1 in immersion classrooms claim that the L1 is an important cognitive tool that should be allowed. Many teachers resist the idea of condoning L1 use in the classroom for fears that the L1 will become predominate. Different researchers have made different recommendations. Anyone who has been a part of this debate has called for more research.

I will present original research conducted for my masters degree at McGill University. I conducted two collaborative treatment sessions with third graders to aid in their ability to work through the target language.  The treatment sessions began with an overview of the history of the debate and included the students’ opinions and values about the use of the TL in immersion. After determining that the students thought it was possible and valuable, we brainstormed strategies and scaffolding what they thought would be useful to increase their spoken TL.  Data collected includes classroom observations as students worked in small groups, teacher and student questionnaires, teacher interviews, and student focus groups. I will outline the results that I obtained and how the findings relate to classroom teaching. I will highlight pedagogical solutions that have been proposed by others and invite those in attendance to contribute their experiences and opinions on the subject of L1 in the immersion classroom.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

During the past 40 years, our immersion program has experienced challenges such as recruiting teachers, developing teachers' professional skills, finding resources, and adapting to new curricula & testing. We have addressed these issues in various ways, utilizing the immersion professional learning community to strengthen our program and help with our progress.

Immersion programs across the US endure the same challenges. We often have to address issues with staffing, professional development, curriculum changes, and differing language learner needs. In our one-way elementary school French immersion program, providing a French language-rich environment comes with its set of requirements that are not always easy to fulfill. For example, finding teachers who are fluent in French and can teach at the elementary school level in an immersion classroom has been an on-going issue for the past 40 years.  Accordingly, our history with immersion education has enabled us to establish program protocols and guidelines, create language requirements and benchmarks for our students, build community ties, and create professional standards for our immersion teachers. While the process for creating many of these guidelines and standards has been challenging, it has also been instrumental in strengthening our program and helping us to adapt to changes in curriculum and testing. With the help of the immersion community, school leadership, and parent involvement, we have been successful in overcoming roadblocks such as position reductions, teacher recruitment, continuous immersion staff development, the maintenance of progress from lower to upper grades in the use of French, and the establishment of consistent reading benchmarks for the primary grades. The immersion professional learning community of our program continues to be a vital part of our progress.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

This presentation explores common mainstream assessment practices from a two-way immersion perspective. We will engage in conversation about how these assessments can be most effectively understood, implemented, and transformed so that the literacy progress of bilingual learners can be accurately measured based on culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy.

This presentation is a collaborative informational session focused on a research and practice partnership between the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Verona Area School District in Verona, WI.  The session focus is on our ongoing longitudinal examination of literacy assessment practices that are implemented with emergent bilingual students in two-way immersion classrooms in kindergarten through third grade. We will present our exploration of common mainstream assessment practices from a two-way immersion perspective, and we will share our investigation of literacy approaches that are often used to screen, identify, group, and level children. We will discuss ways in which commonly used literacy assessment methods both benefit and challenge educators working within a bilingual education instructional framework. We will engage participants in the conversation about how these assessments can be most effectively understood, implemented, and perhaps transformed so that the literacy progress of emergent bilingual students can be accurately measured based on culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy. Specifically, we look at guided reading practices, running records, and the process of conducting miscue analyses. Our intent is to contribute to the conversation regarding equitable practices and we suggest the need to develop approaches that consider the whole bilingual child. Through this examination of the assessment practices of one school district, we will provide an opportunity for a shared discussion on the experiences of others as we work together to re-envision the ways in which learning experiences are optimized for young emergent bilingual learners.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Not language Specific

Learn how elementary students can take ownership in showcasing oral and written language proficiency to parents and others. Techniques for sharing proficiency for all levels of elementary immersion students will be discussed. Examples appropriate to varying age groups will be demonstrated and handouts will be available.

Parents of elementary immersion students are anxious to know how their children are progressing in the target language. Many, but not all, immersion students are tested in language proficiency, and these scores are shared with parents, but many times parents are unable to correctly interpret these scores. It is important for students to have an arena where they can demonstrate their proficiency in both oral and written language. This session is designed to instruct teachers on how to set up and facilitate a student-led conference during traditional parent/teacher conferences.

A student-led conference is designed to allow each student to showcase what has been learned in the classroom, both academically and linguistically. The responsibility falls to the student to take ownership of the learning that has taken place. The teachers' role in a student-led conference is minimized during the actual conference, but teacher preparation for the conference is critical. 

There are many positive outcomes of the student-led conference such as:

* Students demonstrate their language skills by speaking and reading in the target language, allowing parents to see what their child can do linguistically

* Students carry on meaningful conversations with parents about their school work and language acquisition, instead of listening to the teachers talk about these issues

* Students take ownership in their own education

* Goals can be mutually agreed upon between parents and students long before meeting with the teacher(s).

* Conferences are generally longer in duration, however, multiple conferences can be held simultaneously which reduces teacher stress

The Davis School District has encouraged all 74 immersion teachers and 68 English partner teachers to transition from standard parent/conferences to student-led conferences in the past 3 years. The feedback from teachers and parents has been overwhelmingly positive.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific

Explore research informed program structure, implementation, and articulation of a quality dual language immersion program aligned to success indicators embedded within four areas: DLI model, immersion language development, biliteracy and counterbalanced instruction, and progress monitoring. Consider how focusing on key success indicators within each area might positively impact student outcomes.

This paper addresses how research has informed program structure, implementation, and articulation aligned to success indicators embedded within four areas or quality quadrants: dual language immersion model, immersion language development, biliteracy and counterbalanced instruction, and progress monitoring. By employing the principle of backward design and determining expected student outcomes first, key questions surrounding student proficiency, cross-cultural intelligence, and academic achievement are posed and explored.  Analyzing qualitative data gathered from the presenters’ conjoint experience designing accountability partnerships with twenty-five distinct schools or districts, participants will learn how identified “success indicators” have shaped a rigorous implementation, articulation, and five-year professional learning process. Furthermore, this session will help participants consider how focusing on one key success indicator within each quadrant might positively impact student outcomes within and across grade levels.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French, multiple

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

We will explore how to enhance the written production of immersion students by implementing Lyster's Noticing-Awareness-Practice model in tandem with the Neurolinguistic Approach's Literacy Loop. By focusing on developing writing skills as the culminating step of literacy development, we can contribute to immersion students' overall language skills.

In this presentation, I will discuss the possibilities for enhancing the writing skills of Immersion students by implementing Lyster’s 2007 Noticing-Awareness-Practice model, as investigated in a research study in a Canadian Grade 12 French Immersion language class, in tandem with the literacy loop as described in the Neurolinguistic Approach (Paradis 2004) and as implemented in the Intensive French program (Netten & Germain 2012). The research study exploring Lyster’s model was undertaken in order to address the issue of the accuracy of written production of French Immersion students (Genesee 1987; Harley 1989; Cummins 2000; Lyster 2007; Burger et al 2011). The goal of the study was to explore the effects of explicit instruction on students’ written production and the effects of such instruction on their metalinguistic awareness. Following a mixed-method design, quantitative data were collected from a treatment class and a control class, and supporting qualitative data were provided by student and teacher interviews and audio recordings of peer work groups in the treatment class. The results from this study show that providing explicit and proactive grammar instruction within the framework of Lyster’s model, supplemented by opportunities for peer interaction, can enhance students’ metalinguistic awareness, and have a positive impact on the accuracy and frequency of use of a targeted structure in their written production. Results of qualitative research conducted subsequently in three schools using the Intensive French program with Grade 5 and 6 students, and of FSL and French Immersion classes implementing the strategies suggested by Intensive French has shown that students’ written production is optimized by introducing writing as part of the literacy loop. I will explore in this presentation the intersection of Lyster’s Noticing-Awareness-Practice model for targeting the accuracy of written production and the positioning of writing within the literacy loop in order to enhance Immersion students’ language development.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This presentation, based on interviews with 12 administrators and 17 French immersion (FI) teachers from New Brunswick (NB), examines the cultural outcomes for NB’s FI program and participants’ perspectives on cultural instruction. Though the program could mediate between Canada’s two official linguistic groups, this is not how they describe its role.

New Brunswick (NB) is Canada’s only officially bilingual province, with English and French as co-official languages. The province has a dual educational system, with separate schools for Anglophone and Francophone children, and a French immersion program with early or late immersion in Anglophone schools.

Couched in the broader discourses of Canada’s Multicultural policy, the cultural outcomes for NB’s French immersion program underscore the importance of learning French in a “pluralist society that accords great importance to its multicultural and multilingual reality” (Ministry of Education, 2005). Understanding the relationship between language and culture is part of this; however, the Ministry states it does not intend for immersion students to “adopt” Francophone culture. The outcomes also emphasize a language-as-asset ideology where bilingualism facilitates expanded job opportunities.

We note some paradoxes within this model. While language acquisition is considered additive, cultural acquisition is subtractive. The relationship between language and culture is limited to appreciation of the Other. Adopting Kramsch’s (2013) view of culture as discourse, we examine these paradoxes from the perspective of administrators and teachers, and consider the implications of an immersion program that disembodies (Kramsch, 2009) language acquisition. We examine administrators’ and teachers’ discourses (Gee, 1990) of language and identity (Kramsch, 2011) and their role in shaping students’ intercultural competence (Bennett, 1993). We draw on Byram’s (1997) Model of Intercultural Competence to examine possible ways forward.

Our analysis regards the following questions:

1. What do these administrators’ and teachers’ discourses convey about language and cultural identity and their relationship?
2. Does their discourse indicate that the development of students’ intercultural competence is an aim of the immersion program?

Our discussion draws on data from interviews with 9 principals whose schools house French immersion programs in NB, with high level administrators in NB’s Department of Education, and with 17 French immersion teachers.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English, Spanish

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This research contributes to a growing body of literature on the impact of language policies and the affective experiences of recent immigrants attending dual language immersion classes in the USA. This study reveals recent immigrants' "testimonios" when attending these classes where the rigid or flexible separation of language took place.   

In this investigation, a critical ethnography in elementary education is presented with the findings obtained from the exploration of the schooling experiences of recent immigrants in the USA when placed in dual language immersion classes where separation of languages is a policy (Lee et al, 2008, Collier & Thomas, 2004; Cummins, 2005; Adelman Reyes, 2007). Under this program, language is used as a resource to motivate learning among students working in cooperative groups (Ruiz, 1984; Gomez, Freeman & Freeman, 2005; Kagan, 1995). However, this study revealed how language can be used also as a tool for oppressing people (Bakhtin, 1981; Giltrow, 2003; Heller, 1995). This research reveals recent immigrant students’ voices about their new schooling experiences when language is used as a resource, or as an oppressive tool among these students who were linguistically bullied (linguistic bullying in education) by students who were more proficient in the second language, English. These harassing incidences against recent immigrants took place when the teacher was not able to monitor cooperative work. Recent immigrants uncovered their feelings through their testimonios as used by LatCrit (Ladson-Billings and Tate, 2006) by sharing their counter-narrative stories (Matsuda, 1987; Delgado 1989). This investigation also reveals that recent immigrants encountered a more welcoming learning environment when attending classes where the teacher practiced a flexible approach of separation of languages and was able to monitor group work.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific

Elementary (K-5)

This session highlights a professional development program, Mills Teacher Scholars’ Newcomer Inquiry Group. Data include participant reflection on the power of collegial engagement, practice-based models of inquiry, and careful, thoughtful establishment of a professional learning community that simultaneously engages multilingual and monolingual teachers in dual language and “English-only” settings.

Abstract:

The Mills Teacher Scholars (MTS) program aligns with a long tradition of educators (Dewey, 1938; Greene, 1978) who advocate for the teaching profession to be “reinvented” (Meier, 1995) and where teachers “actively, collaboratively, and systematically seek answers to their own dilemmas of practice and construct professional knowledge rooted, not only in educational theory, but also in lived classroom experiences” (Wood, 2007, p. 709). All MTS participants commit to deepening their reflective practice, including altering their teaching practices to better meet their students’ needs.

Currently, teachers of newcomers in the Oakland Unified School District system are spread across sites and rarely have the opportunity to collaborate. The MTS Newcomer Inquiry Group provides the space and structure to collaboratively articulate, from the ground up, effective instruction for newcomer emergent bilinguals in multiple settings. Individual teacher participants select an area of inquiry about their students’ learning aligned with this outcome. In a peer-feedback environment, teachers frame researchable questions, plan teaching that will make student learning visible, pursue investigations by systematically collecting and analyzing data from students, share their new understandings, and thereby develop skills essential to high quality teaching.

This Best Practice Session will highlight inquiry via MTS into exploration of newcomer instruction in a dual-language environment. Data shared will include reflection on engagement with other members of the Teacher Scholars group and the power of a professional learning community that both recognizes the importance of practice-based models of inquiry as well as attention to careful, thoughtful establishment of a community of supportive practitioners. Additionally, the session will explore how MTS provides space to engage multilingual and monolingual teachers in dual language and “English-only” settings across classroom contexts.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific

Elementary (K-5)

The Online Immersion Curriculum Map is a powerful tool for individual schools or districts to collect and organize immersion relevant resources, but also to facilitate collaborative planning and to enable curricular and language specific alignments. It can be cloned for free through the North Carolina DPI.

Originally, the only function of the Immersion Curriculum Map was to capture resources created by language immersion teachers in order to create continuity of instruction with a traditionally high overturn of staff.

The product, however, evolved into a dynamic, multi-functional tool far beyond its initial purpose. Its streamlined, standards-based format and highly interlinked surface allow for effective organization and navigation. Curricular and linguistic alignment issues are thus easily detected and can be approached systematically. The map provides structures and tools that facilitate collaborative planning. Its consequent “All-In-One”-concept avoids abundant research in multiple websites in the planning process. It also provides important immersion specific documents, such as trajectories and alignments between CCSS for Language Arts, ACTFL Standards for College and Career Readiness, and North Carolina World Language Standards for alphabetic and iconographic languages. The Immersion Curriculum Map has become a meta-tool that incorporates all aspects of immersion instruction.

A generic template version of the Immersion Curriculum Map is accessible through the North Carolina Department of Education website. Upon request, it can be cloned to any school with Wikispaces subscription with no charge. Training sessions for administrators, facilitators, and teachers have launched, which allows for schools or districts to adjust the curriculum map for their specific needs.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish, French, Chinese

Utah's K-12 DLI framework addresses the impending "gap" between completion of the AP Exam in 9th grade and students' post-secondary education. Our team will share the middle school DLI framework, as well as details about University Bridge Course program model offered in our high schools.

Utah's DLI program is building upon it's strong K-6 elementary, 50-50 model, to provide secondary students with two courses in 7th and 8th grade which are focused on global citizenship, deepening cultural competencies, and alignment to AP themes.  Students will take the AP Language and Culture exam in the 9th grade. This presents an impending "gap" between completion of the AP Exam and students' post-secondary education. To address this need, Utah is developing a statewide system for early college credit in the high school, where students may take one 3000-level, 3-credit course, each year.  These University "Bridge Courses" seek to support continued language development and prepare our graduating seniors to pursue bilingual college and career pathways. Our team will share details about the unique middle school courses, describe the collaboration process between the state office of education and higher education, and share the course delivery model and course structure for the first Bridge Course to be offered in the 2016-17 school year.  

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Chinese, English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Literacy development in immersion programs is strengthened when teachers guide students through intentional oral language experiences around texts, including read-aloud, work-work and text-talk. This session examines one Chinese immersion school’s successful approach to rich oral practices which grow students’ vocabulary, oral language and literacy skills.

Students in immersion programs are expected to develop oral proficiency and literacy skills simultaneously. However, research shows that a solid foundation in oral language is necessary for literacy development. Carefully planned oral language practices, working in the zone just beyond students' current levels, pull students up the proficiency ladder. Additionally, literacy development in immersion programs is strengthened when teachers guide students through rich and intentional oral language experiences around texts, including read-aloud, word work, talk around texts, think-aloud, and more. Participants in this session will examine the effective practices of an immersion school in which the Chinese teachers and university-based trainers work together to implement these best practices. Presenters will share a framework and activities for rich and intentional oral practices that strengthen and grow students' oral proficiency and become the basis for written language skills. Participants will engage in read-aloud, word work and text talk activities with the presenters and in small groups, as presenters model how this work would take place in a K-8 classroom. Participants will take away activities and strategies ready for incorporation into their educational setting. 

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Spanish and Vietnamese

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

A DL program is launched with strong local support - nine years later, how does it continue to grow and lead for equitable educational outcomes?  Participants will engage with leaders from Highline Public Schools (Seattle, WA) about system-wide commitment to biliteracy, and and tackling challenges of expanding programs.

In 2008 Highline Public Schools, an urban district of 20,000 in Seattle, WA, opened its first Dual Language program.  Since then, three additional elementary schools have joined along with a middle school.  A Vietnamese program was added, and three of the elementary programs converted to school-wide models.  Along the way, Common Core standards reshaped the instructional landscape.  At the same time, the school board adopted a strategic plan goal and then school board policy that all students will graduate bilingual and biliterate.  Washington state, like others, adopted the Seal of Biliteracy giving further credibility to the goal of bilingualism and biliteracy.  Partnerships were formed with universities, including a major grant award for a para-to-teacher pipeline.  System level leaders engage in rigorous action research to deepen understanding and practice.

In this context, a number of questions continue to vex Highline's leaders.  How are assessments balanced across languages?  How do we ensure all students' languages are fully valued when only a few are reflected in instruction?  How do we maintain and strengthen student and parent interest and commitment to language learning?  How do we leverage a school-wide model to create a learning environment that fully embraces multilingualism?  How do we keep up with ongoing changes in system-wide instructional guidance that don't easily align with the Dual Language model?  How do we support and develop teachers in embracing translanguaging practices?  How do we develop future teachers, administrators and advocates for multilingual education?

A team of leaders from Highline will share current challenges and responses to them.  Participants will be invited to engage in discussion, and together explore answers to support each other in program implementation.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English/Spanish

Post-Secondary

We will share findings from teachers’ voices about their biliteracy trajectories illustrated with excerpts from their bilingually written pre/post essays.  A conclusion drawn from the data is teachers’ recognition that being biliterate depends on where they are on a continuum. Implications for teacher preparation will be discussed.  

Emergent bilinguals (EBs)’ potential is mostly erased at schools even though the country needs to have bilingual professionals to stay abreast in this competitive world. However, if the U.S. educational system were to capitalize and enhance on the students’ bilingualism (e.g., Spanish and English) and instruct them in their primary language (i.e., to maintain and develop their biliteracy skills (Reyes, 2012)), there will not be a shortage of bilingual teachers nationwide.

Interestingly, some of these EBs become bilingual teachers, and when they begin to work, they wonder whether they are “really” bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural teachers, and whether they are prepared to teach in bilingual programs. For most of them, this doubt stems from not having been formally instructed in their primary language (e.g., Spanish). Thus, there is limited research about teachers’ voices about their biliteracy continua (Hornberger, 2003) and what they have lost or gained when navigating beyond their usual borders.

I will present findings gathered from (a) 19 Student Profile forms (e.g., demographics and other items and (b) 19 pre- and post- essays entitled “My bilingual/ biliteracy trajectory” written for a bilingual literacy class that was taught in 2015. Essays were written in Spanish and English (i.e., participants use their translanguaging skills (Garcia & Wei, 2014)). For the analysis, I used Patton’s (1990) concept of iterativeness (i.e., I re-read the writings many times). The following themes surfaced: losing and/or valuing their biliteracy skills at a certain age, their family’s role in honing their biliteracy skills, their identities as biliterate persons, and the rewriting of their biliteracy trajectories. Two conclusions were drawn: Teachers recognize that they are at different stages in the biliteracy continuum as the research alludes and its maintenance depends on various factors (e.g., their need to write in academic Spanish for their classes); and teachers make every possible effort so that their students do not experience the same trajectory (i.e., not having the opportunity to become biliterate). Implications for bilingual teacher preparation will also be presented.

References

García, O. (2014). Becoming bilingual and biliterate. In C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren & G. P. Wallach (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Literacy. NY: The Guilford Press.

Hornberger, N. (2004). The continua of biliteracy and the bilingual educator: Educational linguistics in practice. Bilingual education and bilingualism, 7(2 & 3), 155-171.

Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Reyes, M. (2012). Spontaneous biliteracy: Examining Latino students’ untapped potential. Theory Into Practice, 51, 248-255.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

Immersion faces a number of significant challenges which are shared across a wide range of models and contexts. Here I explore some of these current challenges, drawing particularly on research dealing with immersion programs in heritage languages. Addressing the diversity of language and learning needs found in some immersion models requires not only effective teacher education, but also examination of teacher and parent beliefs. Supporting parents in becoming active educational partners in immersion is challenging but worthwhile, even when parents have low proficiency in the target language. Finally, it is important to look beyond the classroom and consider how target language use can be promoted outside the immersion setting, and the link between language and identity.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Teachers at Coronado Elementary used a collaborative process to develop their students' ability to have academic conversations in Spanish. This process is called VISITAS, Viewing Interactive Sheltered Instruction, Teachers and Students. We found that the VISITAS process gave us a schoolwide focus for improving instruction. 

Coronado Elementary is 90/10 dual language immersion school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our professional development program needed to reflect our biggest challenge as a dual language school: getting our students to talk about their learning in Spanish. With the support of Dual Language Education of New Mexico (DLeNM), we collaboratively developed a focus on student-to-student academic conversations to improve instruction. We used a process similar to the instructional rounds model that was designed by DLeNM for dual language programs called VISITAS, which stands for Viewing Interactive Sheltered Instruction, Teachers and Students. This practice uses teachers' abilities to see what is happening in another teacher's classroom by using close observation that is descriptive and non-judgmental. We used this protocol to help us identify academic conversations as an area for schoolwide focus. The VISITAS protocol was a powerful tool because it included scaffolds that are appropriate for dual language programs such as planning for peer interaction and activating prior knowledge. More importantly, the specific norms like presuming positive intentions and maintaining confidentiality helped make it feel safe for teachers. Our students are now better able to meet Common Core objectives while developing Spanish literacy and speaking skills. In the 2015-2016 school year, we have expanded the use of academic conversations into mathematics to help students consider and discuss multiple strategies for solving problems. The VISITAS process has enabled us to come to a common vision of how we wanted to improve as a school, and that vision is reflected in our students’ success.

Zwiers, J. & Crawford, M. (2011). Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk That Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Irish

Co-Official/Regional Language Immersion

The number of students entering an early language immersion program and continuing to the end of high school appears to be quite small. Students leave for a wide variety of reasons. We report here on the challenges and best practice from a sample of 25 immersion schools in Ireland.

The number of students who enter an early language immersion programme and continue though to the end of high school appears to be quite small in many jurisdictions. Students leave immersion programmes for a wide variety of reasons. Among the reasons cited are a lack of qualified teachers, restricted subject choice at high-school level in immersion programmes, a lack of suitable learning resources in the immersion language, a perceived inability to cater for students with learning disabilities, the personal views of parents or students in relation to immersion education, and leadership and policy issues at school or school-board level (Bourdreaux, 2011; Cadez, 2006; Ó Duibhir, NigUidhir, Ó Cathalláin, Ní Thuairisg & Cosgrove, 2015). These issues can result in attrition from immersion programmes and a lack of continuity from elementary to middle or high school when students are in their early teens (Bourdreaux & Olivier, 2009; Conseil Canadien sur l’Apprentissage, 2007; Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru 2009). There are disadvantages associated with this phenomenon not just to the students’ language skills but also to the reputation of immersion programmes in general.

In this paper we report on the challenges and best practice from a random sample of 25 elementary immersion schools in Ireland. The analysis of data gathered from questionnaires to principals (n=25), Grade 6 parents (n=321) and pupils (n=284) reveal the main factors that influence the decision of parents and their children to continue in an immersion programme at post-primary (high-school) level.  The questionnaire data was augmented with parent (n=20) and principal (n=20) interviews. We believe that addressing the issues arising from this research is important for the strategic development and sustainability of immersion education internationally.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This paper examines a school district that created a dual language program to increase racial integration between its Black and Hispanic students. An ethnographic study over five years describes the challenges that the district overcame and the challenges it still faces in relation to racial, linguistic and cultural dynamics.

Over the past two decades, the largest percentage of racial integration includes Black and Hispanic integration, while the smallest increase has been in White and Hispanic integration (Orfield, 2003). Hispanic school children have a greater likelihood of interacting with Black school children than they do with White school children due to racial segregation (Fairlie, 2012). This paper presents an ethnographic study over five years of a majority minority school district located in a predominantly Black suburb outside of Chicago that is now becoming predominantly Hispanic. In order to increase racial integration amongst students, the school board approved a plan in December 2013 to start a new dual language school (Spanish-English) in which the Hispanic students from the north side of the railroad tracks would be bussed to attend in a Black neighborhood on the south side of the tracks. The research study examines the role of race, language and culture at the macro and micro levels as it follows the design of the dual language program, the hurdles it had to overcome and its present fledgling state. Our data include extensive interviews from many key individuals and focus groups, documents analyzing the program design, notes from lengthy board meetings, classroom observations and survey data. The culture wars that ensued in this dual language program created fixed polarities between Black and Hispanic families that quickly ossified; however, the goal of the school community is to oscillate between polarities, to find a shared common core, to find cures for troublesome dichotomies, and to always move toward a better understanding of each other. The process of pluralization found in majority minority schools therefore requires new connections to be made between Black and Hispanic students, to invite conversation between Black and Hispanic families around language identity, and to navigate the diverse subcultures within each racial group.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Multiple

Elementary (K-5)

A number of studies have asserted the effectiveness of dual language/immersion education for closing the academic achievement gap for English Learners. In this session, we will report on a Utah study that compares ELA performance of ELs in DLI programs to statewide EL data.

In this session, we will report on research that will determine to what extent English Learners (ELs) in Utah’s dual language immersion (DLI) programs succeed in English Language Arts (ELA). This on-going research will contribute to scholarship that has asserted the effectiveness of dual language/immersion education for closing the achievement gap for ELs (e.g. Collier & Thomas, 2004; Marian et al., 2013; Thomas & Collier, 2015). The recently completed Portland study (Steele et al., 2015) measured causal effect of random assignment to dual immersion on achievement of native English speakers and ELs. The study found positive effects on ELA by 5^th and 8^th grade across languages and program types, including two-way programs, where roughly half of a class is classified as EL.

Our EL achievement study builds on previous studies on ELA and math achievement of students in Utah’s dual immersion programs, conducted in 2013 and 2014. Our 2013 study found that DLI students, who learn math exclusively in the target or partner language in grades 1-3, performed at the same level as their (baseline equivalent) non-DLI peers in 3^rd grade math. Our 2014 follow-up study found that DLI and non-DLI students grew the same in ELA, but DLI students grew significantly more in math than their propensity-matched non-DLI counterparts. In both studies, ELs achieved at levels comparable to their native English-speaking peers.

We are now investigating whether ELs in Utah's DLI programs outperform their non-immersion peers in ELA to determine whether DLI, as an intervention, helps close the academic achievement gap for ELs in Utah. We are focusing on ELA, because, unlike math, the curriculum is the same for Utah students in DLI and non-DLI programs. Ourcurrent study of 2015 data, expanded to include more students in 3rd grade, and also 6^th grade, will compare ELA performance of ELs to state-wide ELA data.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Mandarin Chinese

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This session will provide findings from two studies: (1) a cross-sectional study of a K-5 Mandarin/English two-way program that assessed students’ dual language proficiency and content knowledge across the curriculum, and (2) a comparison of the Mandarin performance of immersion program elementary students and those enrolled in a high school world language program. 

This presentation includes the results of two studies of Mandarin two-way programs students. The first study provides the findings from a cross-sectional study of a K-5 Mandarin/English two-way program that assessed students’ dual language proficiency (English and Mandarin and subject matter knowledge in Mathematics and Science. The researchers followed students’ progress from kindergarten through fifth grade and analyzed assessment data on English and Mandarin proficiency levels of both the heritage and non-heritage language students enrolled in the program. The study also compared student performance on standardized tests in English language Arts/Reading, Mathematics and Science with students enrolled in the same school, but not in the two-way immersion program. 

The second study, which will be emphasized on this presentation, compared the Mandarin performance of the students of the same Mandarin two-way program in the first study with that of high school world language program students in the same school district.  A comparison of Mandarin proficiency was made between the 4^th and 5^th graders and Level 4 and Level 5 (AP Chinese) high school students who took the STAMP assessment at the end of the school year. Results indicate that immersion students slightly outperformed the comparison high school group in reading, but lagged slightly behind in writing and speaking skills, for which assessment tasks required higher levels of cognitive awareness. Findings also show that, while only a few non-heritage speakers in the high school world language program continued to level 5 (AP), most non-heritage speakers remained in the immersion program for the full duration and performed as well, or nearly as well, as the heritage speakers when exiting the program. Further studies on this topic are needed, but the findings provide a strong rationale for the role of Mandarin immersion programs in supporting students to develop high levels of proficiency in Mandarin. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Presenters in Spanish/English programs, but concept can also be applied to any language/Not Language Specific

Elementary (K-5)

This presentation describes the development of bilingual units using Beeman & Urow's Biliteracy Unit Framework (BUF). The BUF intentionally plans for oracy, literacy, and the development of metalinguistic awareness through the Bridge. Participants will learn how oracy both supports and enhances literacy development in two languages throughout a biliteracy unit.

The Biliteracy Unit Framework (BUF) is a tool for planning integrated units that address development of content, literacy, and language. Oracy is an essential component of a BUF and is always developed first. Presenters will discuss the primacy of oracy development and how it supports not only language development, but enhances development of meaning-based skills that are essential for literacy (i.e., the broad skills, such as background knowledge and rich vocabulary knowledge, that are continually being developed). Participants will learn strategies that promote oracy development at the beginning, as well as throughout, a biliteracy unit. This will inlcude adaptations to address application of these strategies across different program models and grade levels. Presenters will share an example of a BUF that demonstrates how the strategies presented are operationalized in a real unit that integrates oracy along the oracy to literacy continuum.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific session

Ever wondered how to reconcile immersion content instruction and language assessment with authentic communication? In this session, participants will learn to develop immersion assessments based on the ACTFL guidelines and practice effective teacher interview models using reliable rubrics, which focus classroom instruction on communicative competence and move students towards proficiency.

Fairfax County Public Schools has employed IPAs at the elementary and secondary levels it calls the Performance Assessment for Language Students (PALS) for almost two decades. This presentation explores the development and implementation of the immersion Jr. PALS with an eye towards sharing lessons learned and facilitating their adaptation to the participant’s immersion classroom, school or division. Emphasis will be placed on the recent work toward a uniform teacher interview format and rating rubric system which follow the model of ACTFL's MOPI. Presenters will engage the audience in key aspects of the teacher elicitation model as well as the necessary professional development tools provided to teachers, including instruments and methods of elicitation and best practices in rating. Essential elements of inter-rater reliability practices, including using data to refine methods and practices will also be discussed. 

Participants will gain an understanding of how apply the principles of the MOPI to develop or refine their immersion IPAs and will leave with example elicitation guides, rubrics and training strategies. Through a variety of group engagement strategies, participants will experience and reflect on the compelling effects of IPAs on immersion classroom instruction, practice strategies such as Academic Conversations to engage students in authentic immersion content communication tasks.  These strategies will increase the focus of immersion content lessons on building content as well as communicative competence leading to higher levels of target language proficiency.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Integrating content and language has been the cornerstone of immersion education since its inception. Today, with so many more standards and other curriculum demands, that integration is as much a necessity as it is an ideal. This unit brings together Science, Common Core Language Arts and World Language standards.

This unit was written for second grade, one-way French immersion, but the concepts are applicable for any grade level, any language.  We will begin with a very brief look at the Minnesota Earth Science standards and FOSS "Air and Weather" module as the content anchor and then identify Common Core Language Arts standards (Informational Reading; Speaking, Viewing, Listening; Media Literacy) and the ACTFL World Language standards to create a fully integrated, language-rich, content-based unit.

For this unit I took a dual track approach.  That is to say, there are focus-on-form activities during the science unit itself, and there are science-based lessons going on during French language arts instruction as well.  Any time taken away from the hands-on science lesson to attend to language will be made up in the language arts lesson that focuses on science content.  This "double dipping" approach strengthens both areas of instruction.

Science notebooks are an ideal medium for focus-on-form lessons during a science lesson.  We will look at a student's science notebook entry and examine ways to reinforce language accuracy and communicative competency, all the while keeping the science lesson moving.  Next we will look at a language arts lesson, which uses weather-related texts to teach and practice informational  skills.  Finally, I will share ideas about communicative assessments, and how they might be shared between science and language arts instructional time.

One of the greatest challenges teachers face today is finding enough time, and this is especially true in immersion.  Given the sheer number of standards we are expected to meet during the school year, it is simply not possible to teach units in isolation.  Luckily for us, integrating content and language is a desirable alternative, as we know that when learners are interested in a topic, they are motivated to acquire language to communicate. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

English/Spanish

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Middle School/Junior High

Discover middle school DL techniques and strategies.  Topics include how to develop academic language and incorporate syllabication across content areas, bridging Spanish and English within the DL classroom, activities to motivate struggling writers, merging literacy into content areas, and how to transfer academic content between languages.

As teachers of sixth through eighth grades covering all content areas, we will give the participants a glance into our middle grades classrooms in a Title I school.  The middle school Dual Language program has been in effect for four years at our school, and ten years at our feeder elementary school.  Coming from a highly rural area, with 82% of students receiving free/reduced lunch, and a 71% Hispanic population we had a strong need to implement a Dual Language program, along with a need to incorporate proven ELL strategies into our daily instruction. In our session we will review classroom activities and strategies that develop speaking, writing, reading, and listening abilities in math, science, social studies, and language arts. Our goal will be to provide practical techniques that are easily adapted across contents to help all students grow academically, as well as to bridge the gap for ELL students.  Topics addressed will be: how to develop academic language across content areas, bridging Spanish and English within the Dual Language classroom, incorporating syllabication and word parts in all content areas to aid with comprehension, activities to motivate struggling writers by capitalizing on their diversity, merging literacy in Science and Social Studies, and how to transfer the academic content students have learned in one language to the other.  We will showcase actual student products, rubrics, modeling and plenty of take-aways that can be used and adapted to meet the needs of multiple grade levels, all presented with a middle school approach.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Not Language Specific

Post-Secondary

This presentation showcases the results of a three-year study regarding best practices for teacher preparation courses, specifically targeting K-12 dual language teachers. The qualitative findings provide rich and informative recommendations related to the uniqeness of dual language pedagogy, assessment, and ultimately the transformation of UNC Charlotte teacher preparation programs.  

With an increased emphasis on the expansion of P-12 dual language programs in North Carolina districts, there is an ever-increasing need for more dual language teachers. While many dual language classrooms have highly qualified teachers, there continue to be great challenges associated with finding bilingual, biliterate teachers in North Carolina and nation-wide. Likewise, there are severely limited teacher preparation programs that specifically focus on the unique pedagogical configurations necessary for teaching and learning content-based instruction in two languages. Similarly, authentic assessments within the process are also progressively challenging to address. This presentation focuses on the results of a three-year, qualitative study including in-depth interviews with over 25 dual language educators from North Carolina and New Mexico regarding teacher preparation programs. Specific features are highlighted based on the current demands of dual language classrooms, shaping the study's findings to serve the field with recommendations for transforming teacher preparation programs. Some examples include targeted courses for dual language teachers. Participants glean classroom and administrative details from new program perspectives as well as historical views in long-standing dual language settings. The presentation reveals aspects related to UNC Charlotte proposed undergraduate and graduate program development, coursework in the areas of biliteracy, dual language methods, authentic assessment, and the formation of specialized dual language practicum experiences. Participants will have opportunities for interactive collaboration and discussions connected to the elements of the coursework, development, and the outcomes related to teacher licensure. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Minority language education (FL1) and French immersion education (FL2)

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

A summary should be a coherent, accurate, and succinct representation of a source text. Our analysis of summary writing by Canadian students in both minority Francophone (FL1) and French-immersion (FL2) programs from Grade 9 to university level will focus on variables related to grammatical proficiency, syntactic complexity, and connector use.

A summary should be a coherent, accurate, and succinct representation of a source text. Beyond knowledge of the topic, writing a good summary is predicated on many interconnected skills underlying effective reading and writing. As student language proficiencies may differentiate the quality of summary produced, we hypothesize that both language program and grade or academic level of participants may be important determinants.

We will present statistical analyses of grammatical proficiency, syntactic complexity, and connector use in summaries produced by both Francophone (FL1) and French-immersion students (FL2) in Manitoba. This cross-age study is based on two corpora. The first corpus includes 400 summaries written by students across grades nine to twelve, 50 in each grade and language program, in response to a French-language text dealing with the re-introduction of wolves in Yellowstone Park. AUTHOR and his colleagues (2001, 2004, 2007) analyzed both content and language variables in this corpus and reported many statistically significant differences for program and/or grade, as well as interactions between these categorical variables. The second corpus includes 87 additional summaries produced by first-year university students based on the same text and similar procedures. The results of this latter study have not yet been published.   

For the 37 grammatical variables, program-grade interactions were observed for four of the six categories of errors: noun, syntax, verb, and spelling. The remaining two categories (expression and pronoun) showed significant differences for the effect of program only. A fine-grained analysis will be presented for variables of particular interest, as well as those related to syntactic complexity and connector use.   

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific

Come learn the characteristics of a highly qualified biliterate/bicultural teacher, and join the discussion on how teacher education programs can increase the recruitment and development of highly qualified biliterate/bicultural teachers, both pre-service and in-service, to address the current shortage of teachers for dual immersion programs. 

Research attests to the academic benefit for all students enrolled in dual immersion programs over time (Collier and Thomas, 2004; Ramirez, 1991; Thomas and Collier, 2002), and how this contributes to the closing of the achievement gap for students who most typically underperform in English-only educational programs. Research also identifies the cognitive benefits from developing high levels of literacy in English and a second language (Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010; Bialystok, Craik, Klein, & Viswanathan, 2004; Kempert, Saalbach, & Hardy, 2011).

Across the US, the number of dual immersion programs is rising exponentially, as districts and sites seek to develop programs that will lead to their students achieving to higher levels academically and acquiring high levels of biliteracy to best prepare them for college and career in the 21^st century. With the rise in the number of programs comes an increased demand for teachers to staff the programs. With research showing that student achievement is linked to teacher quality (Borman & Kimball, 2005; Darling-Hammond, 2000), highly qualified biliterate/bicultural teachers play a critical role in reaching thegoal of replicating the research results both academically and linguistically.   

With the rising number of dual immersion programs and the demand for highly qualified bilterate/bicultural teachers, a teacher shortage has emerged, triggering three critical questions:

1. What are the characteristics of a highly qualified biliterate/bicultural teacher?
2. How can teacher education programs structure their programs to support the development of these characteristics in their candidates?
3. How can teacher education programs increase the recruitment and development of highly qualified biliterate/bicultural teachers, both pre-service and in-service, to address the current shortage? 

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Mulitple (French, Spanish, Mandarin)

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

Now that you've hired your teachers, what are the steps necessary to acclimate them to their new environment and develop plans for professional development specific to the strategies  of immersion instruction? Through discussion we will determine what this process will look like for your school.

BRFLAIM has been involved in immersion education for fourteen years, offering instruction in French and Spanish . During that time BRFLAIM has developed into one of the top performing schools in the district. We are one of only five schools in Louisiana that have received state certification and have been recognized as a Magnet school of excellence. Due to the demand, an additional campus, BRFLAIM II, was opened, adding a second Spanish tract and a Mandarin component to the original program. Much of our success can be credited to our continuing search for professional development that meets the needs of the incoming teachers, assisting them with transferring their experiences from their home countries into the best practices for immersion instruction. 

During the presentation, we will provide several suggestions as to the use of creative scheduling to allow time for new teachers to observe experienced peers, meet and debrief, and attempt strategies in their own class. We will discuss both vertical team meetings and grade level meetings and illustrate how they allow new teachers to become more knowledgable of the curriculum. New teachers are also required to attend weekly meeetings after school to address individual needs.

The discussion portion will be guided by the facillitators to determine how some of the stratgies utilized at BRFLAIM can be implemented on their campuses.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Dutch, German, or English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Supported by a theoretical model, we: (1) examine subject teacher and language teacher pedagogic collaboration towards integration through teacher, headteacher and learner perspectives from a Belgian francophone secondary school; and (2) report on tools development with and for "dual-teams" of teachers from several schools for co-constructing effective content and language integration.

A pedagogic challenge at the heart of dual language education is, for teachers, to support integrated learning of and through an additional language (Coyle et al., 2010). In contexts where subject teachers and language teachers ‘share’ learners at different times in the timetable, an implication is the need for them to collaborate towards co-constructing the integration of their disciplines. So what comes into play and how to help make it work?

This paper considers such teacher collaboration in two ways. Firstly, how it is understood, perceived and experienced in one specific context. Supported by a theoretical model (Chopey-Paquet, 2015), we examine multiperspectival data from a francophone Belgian secondary school whose dual language program (at least two subjects each year) is through Dutch as an additional language. It is an urban setting with a socio-economically disadvantaged student population. Data were collected from interviews with 4 teachers (subject and language), the headteacher and 64 students (9 focus-groups). The analyses focus on convergences/divergences from these key players regarding teacher collaboration. What factors are perceived as enabling and/or limiting the teachers’ developing effective pedagogic partnership in their context? Probing understandings of integration, what roles do these practitioners need to play and with what support for purposefully progressing in their pedagogic collaboration towards co-constructing integration of content and language, to their ‘shared’ students’ benefit? Findings provide insight from the players’ perspectives and illustrate complex interacting factors, conditions and processes.

Secondly, building on the research we report on an on-going project. We are developing practical tools with and for ‘dual-teams’ of subject and language teachers from several francophone Belgian secondary schools to support their collaborative partnership and practices. Focus-groups and practitioner-based inquiry methods are employed to cultivate the teachers’ reflexive analysis and deepening understandings for co-constructing integration from a pluriliteracies perspective (Meyer et al., 2015).

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

Multiple

Indigenous Language Immersion

Indigenous language immersion is a unique strand of immersion and dual language programs. Despite different sociocultural and geopolitical contexts of operation, unique commonalities unite Native peoples in sustainably revitalizing their traditional cultures and languages. Topics surrounding the cultural foundation of the Indigenous language immersion model continuum are explored and discussed.

Staying True to the Spirit of our Languages and Cultures in Indigenous Language Immersion

Symposium organized by

Brian McInnes, University of Minnesota - Duluth

Language immersion programs present a hopeful and potential means of sustainably revitalizing threatened Indigenous languages. Dakota, Native Hawaiian, Ojibwe, and Quechua peoples are all actively working to strengthen and grow program models in their traditional territories. Indigenous language immersion has emerged as a unique class of bilingual education program based on its purpose, overall approach to teaching and learning, adaptation of academic standards and assessment, and the incorporation of cultural perspectives in practice. Adapting ancient languages and incorporating land-based cultural traditions within the framework of contemporary school-based programming is not without challenge. Mainstream learning environments, resources, and pedagogical structures may, in fact, be contradictory to traditional Indigenous models. Discussion of how Native language immersion programs from around the world determine and fulfill their operational goals in such contexts offers both important insight into the Indigenous language immersion paradigm, and inspiration for other groups. This is particularly important when the first speakers who helped found such programs find themselves passing the leadership baton to new generations of second language learner teachers.

Founded in the spirit of cultural maintenance and survival, Indigenous language programs are an important part of strengthening both community and identity. The incorporation of cultural products, practices, and perspectives is a shared feature with other world language models. It is, however, in the depth and degree of cultural investment that Indigenous language programs stand alone. The spiritual nature of Indigenous languages requires a unique approach to teaching and learning. Exploring the different experiences of varied tribal groups in maintaining the spirit of language and culture in language immersion programs may point towards a continuum of Indigenous immersion practice that can help scholars and educators better understand, create, and maintain such programs as sustainable sources of hope, academic achievement, and cultural prosperity.

Emerging Indigenous Second Language Programs

Neil McKay, Bdote Learning Center

Brooke Ammann, Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School

Many global Indigenous languages are threatened or on the verge of extinction. Creating language immersion programs for children are widely viewed as a means of sharing the language as broadly as possible in the community context. In many cases, only a few surviving tribal elder speakers remain and teaching staffs must work collaboratively with fluent speakers to revitalize language before it disappears. With language tied closely to identity in Indigenous contexts, the stakes are high. Emerging programs face the special challenge of creating general vocabulary, adapting cultural methods of education to school-based contexts, and forging new cultural syntheses of teaching and learning. A unique quality of hope and heroic determination characterizes such efforts which are on the forefront of their nations’ need to reclaim language, culture, and identity. Cultural and spiritual connections are vital inclusions in programs that seek authentic community recognition and engagement. 

Established Indigenous Second Language Program

Brooke Ammann, Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School 

Kalehua Krug, Native Hawaiian Language Immersion

Contemporary Indigenous models of language immersion education were initiated decades ago by Maori and Native Hawaiian peoples. These efforts are known throughout the world for their success in helping create thousands of speakers of the target language who embrace the cultural traditions of their peoples. Such immersion efforts now run from birth through Ph.D level programming, and offer long-term hope and inspiration for the continued adaptation and survival of Indigenous peoples and survival. In such established program models, strong standards for language and culture learning have been developed alongside academic content objectives. Language revitalization efforts in schools are partnered with those in the home and community, and initiatives to train future language teachers are robust. The successes and challenges faced by established programs are unique in ensuring that new sources of knowledge and learning practices are compatible with Indigenous modalities. 

Maintenance Programs for First Language Speaking Communities

Kalehua Krug, Native Hawaiian Language Immersion 

Elizabeth Sumida Huaman, Quechua Language and Culture Education

Indigenous language education for first language speakers of Native tongues remains a viable and important consideration in a global context. This applies equally to tribal groups who have successfully revitalized their languages to the point of raising first speaking children within the home setting, or peoples who have not lost their language but are beginning to feel the stresses of acculturation for the first time. How to grow Indigenous languages into new contexts of linguistic and cultural actualization—where language learning considerations become secondary to the development of cultural perspective—is a desired and necessary goal for all Native nations committed to quality long-term immersion efforts.

Symposium (2 hours + 15 minutes)

multiple

In this symposium, four speakers from different language immersion contexts will explore translanguaging pedagogies. Each will explain their conceptualization of translanguaging, whether/how it translates into pedagogical practice, and potential benefits and pitfalls that may attend translanguaging practices in the classroom contexts that they represent.

In this symposium, four speakers from different language immersion contexts will explore translanguaging pedagogies. Each will explain their conceptualization of translanguaging, whether/how it translates into pedagogical practice, and potential benefits and pitfalls that may attend translanguaging practices in the classroom contexts that they represent.

The Role of Context in Translanguaging

Symposium Organized by

Deborah Palmer, University of Colorado-Boulder and

Susan Ballinger, McGill University

In the past decade, a paradigm shift has occurred in the field of language education regarding our understanding of how bilinguals use their languages to learn both content and new language practices. While the prevailing mentality among immersion and content-based language educators prior to this shift was that learners’ languages should be kept strictly separated in order to fully develop each language system, researchers now increasingly call for pedagogical practices that bridge learners’ languages, encouraging learners to draw on all their language practices as they strive to develop cognitive, linguistic, and academic skills. These practices are often collectively labeled ‘translanguaging.’

Nevertheless, translanguaging remains controversial, both as a term and in practice. First, we struggle to define and understand translanguaging in a consistent manner, leading to confusion over what can and cannot be labeled translanguaging. Some note the lack of research supporting claims for the benefits of translanguaging, as well as the lack of information regarding how to translate it into concrete teaching methods. They argue that we need to better understand how to strike a balance between systematically using students’ primary language as a resource, and maintaining ample opportunities for target language input and practice.

Others argue that interpretations of translanguaging must be context-specific: practices that are beneficial in one context may be inappropriate and even harmful in others. In this symposium, four speakers from different language immersion contexts will explore translanguaging pedagogies. Each will explain their conceptualization of translanguaging, whether/how it translates into pedagogical practice, and potential benefits and pitfalls that may attend translanguaging practices in the classroom contexts that they represent. 

The Potential of Translanguaging to Reveal Young Bilinguals’ Developing Narrative Competence and Bilingual Identities: Doing “Being Bilingual” in a Preschool Spanish/English Dual Language Bilingual Education Program

Mileidis Gort, University of Colorado-Boulder

Drawing on qualitative analyses of preschool-age, emergent bilinguals’ story retelling, this presentation will highlight the potential of translanguaging – or the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire – to reveal young children’s language and literacy learning and to perform their developing bilingual identities. The analysis focuses on the post-read aloud story retellings of three preschool-age, US-born emergent bilinguals of Latino heritage who represent varying, but typical, bilingual experiences of children in this multilingual, US southeastern urban area. Participants drew on a variety of representational systems (e.g., illustrations, text, gestures) and their emerging bilingual competence to retell book-based stories, and evidenced their conceptualization of the retell task as well as their developing narrative and oral storytelling competence. Children’s translanguaging practices revealed their dynamic linguistic and cultural funds of knowledge, scaffolded their formalized language performances and experimentation with academic discourse and new language forms, and reflected the language norms and practices of their linguistically and culturally diverse community. Such analyses of emergent bilingual children’s languaging practices provide insight into the complex dynamics involved in doing “being bilingual” in a preschool Spanish/English dual language bilingual education program.

Translanguaging in the Heritage Language Context

Tina Hickey, University College Dublin

This contribution will consider the impact of translanguaging in heritage language settings in particular, where a majority language such as English and a threatened minority language such as Welsh or Irish co-exist. While acknowledging the potential benefits of translanguaging for some learners in these settings, there is also the possibility that it may have unintended consequences for others. Research showing the need to consider a range of child, school and societal factors will be discussed. Child-level factors include pupils’ age, language proficiency, language learning motivations and preferences, and family language proficiency; school-level factors include the language balance among pupils, the curriculum goals, and the language aims of the school; while relevant societal factors include the status of each language and general attitudes to them. Consideration will be given to identifying ways in which heritage language settings could implement translanguaging practices that reap benefits while still remaining sensitive to such factors. 

Translanguaging as Resource in a Dual Language Bilingual Education Context

Susana Ibarra Johnson, University of New Mexico

Integrating the rich ways that bilingual students do literacy in their everyday lives to scaffold and support student learning is essential in this session. Translanguaging has the potential to improve biliteracy instruction, relationships with students and students’ own comprehension and engagement by taking up a translanguaging stance, design, and moves. This session presents how a bilingual teacher and her students use translanguaging as a resource for thinking, remembering, and discussing by sembrando juntos [planting together] seeds of biliteracy learning with bilingual texts. The Cuentame Algo activity shared in this session demonstrates how students use translanguaging to make meaning of bilingual texts by using their dynamic language practices with those used in school?juntos?to leverage deep understandings. Taking up a translanguaging stance can potentially provide bilingual students a space in which they can draw upon their growing knowledge of the functions, intentions, and power of written and spoken language.  

Challenging the Use of English as an Essential Scaffold in French Immersion

Roy Lyster, McGill University

French immersion in Canada has striven to create classroom settings that maximize students’ exposure to French L2 and opportunities to use it in communities that are otherwise predominantly English-speaking. In spite of these efforts, it has been well documented that French immersion students use English increasingly as they progress through the program, expressing dissatisfaction and hesitation concerning their use of the L2 and reaching a plateau in their French L2 development around the same as their use of English L1 increases.

This paper will argue that more use of English in French immersion will lead neither to greater fluency in French nor more confidence in using it. I will take the position that the use of English L1 by French immersion students is a result of the socio-political context in which they live—where English, with its increasingly global status, is dominant and considered sufficient. The driving question will be: What scaffolding techniques are more likely than English L1 to support continued development of both L2 proficiency and content knowledge?

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Chinese and Spanish

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

The presenter will share key ideas highlighting the balance between locally created common assessments that integrate performance based assessment with standardized assessments.  In addition, the presenter will share practices for vertical alignment of proficiency targets for students to reach by the end of each grade level.

This session will inform the audience about a balanced assessment approach for Chinese and Spanish Immersion students.  The presenter will share key ideas highlighting the balance between locally created common assessments that integrate performance based assessment with standardized assessments using ACTFL's Proficiency Guidelines and Can-Do Statements.  In addition, the audience will learn about how the Minnetonka Public School District has created a vertical alignment of proficiency targets for students to reach by the end of each grade level as they move through elementary and middle school and ultimately into the high school.  The vertical alignment and balanced assessment system understanding will be presented through the lense of Understanding by Design (UbD).

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French/English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

A study on the attitudes of French immersion teachers toward local Louisiana French varieties was conducted using a Matched Guise study. Results suggest slightly negative views but an important lack of knowledge about Louisiana French and Creole among teachers. Discussion and recommendations about possible ways forward will close the paper. 

In the past, schools and teachers played a large role in the decline of French in Louisiana and the fostering of negative attitudes towards the local varieties of French.  In fact, a slogan of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) was L’école a détruit le français, l’école doit le restaurer (School destroyed French, school must restore it).  Immersion schools are often viewed as playing a key role in whatever the future holds for  French in Louisiana; therefore, the attitudes of those providing instruction in the immersion program with regard to different varieties of French, especially the Louisiana vernaculars, is an important issue.

To gather data on attitudes, research was collected in two distinct quantitative phases with participants working as French immersion teachers within the State of Lousiana.  During the first phase, ninety-two educators completed a subjective reaction Matched Guise test by listening to and evaluating five different varieties of French (Louisiana French, Louisiana Creole, Quebecois French, Acadian French of New Brunswick, and International French).  Participants completed three sections of the Matched Guise test: possible personality adjectives, social affinities questions, and profession prestige score.  During the second phase, ninety-one participants completed a background and attitudes questionnaire. The main findings suggest that participants in general gave higher scores to the non-Louisiana varieties on the Matched Guise test.  It has also been found that the teachers, who are almost entirely foreigners brought in from Francophone countries and not native Louisianans, know very little about Louisiana French varieties but are open to the integration of Louisiana French and Louisiana Creole into the immersion curriculum.  This presentation will end with researchers sharing their thoughts on how the attitudinal data can be transferred to program administration, curriculum organization, and teacher professional development.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish

Bilingual and dual language campus leaders who are not provided professional development regarding best practices, programming, and second language acquisition negatively impact students’ academic success. Findings resulting from a phenomenological bound case study will drive the interactive session and include suggestions for present and aspiring bilingual and dual language administrators.

The Wallace Foundation (2012) reported that after teacher instruction, campus leadership ability was the greatest indicator of student success. Yet, the report noted, how to effectively prepare campus leaders for the job is not a focal point of educational reform. Especially at a time when closing the achievement gap and meeting students’ needs, including those of the growing English language learner population, is imperative, the simple fact is that without effective leaders most of the goals of educational improvement will be very difficult to achieve.

The purpose of this presentation is to reveal the findings and implications of a phenomenological bounded-case study that identified campus principals’ perceptions of how principal mentorship influenced their ability to lead a dual language campus in one Texas school district. The research questions that guided this study examined how the principal mentorship program was structured, specific components relating to dual language, and obstacles encountered. Dual language campus principals who received guidance as part of the district principal mentorship program in the Texas school district participated in the study.

Within the scope of this study, the overarching conclusion suggested that dual language principals who are not effectively mentored, including professional development targeting dual language best practices, programming, and second language acquisition, will not be able to provide guidance and support to teachers which directly negatively impacts students’ academic success.

Some of the implications for practice include: principal mentorship programs must be fully structured, mentors must have a deep understanding of leading dual language programs, additive ideologies must be explicitly addressed with campus leaders, and the evident need for cultural proficiency training must be targeted via administrator professional development.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

not language specific

An explanation of how two school districts in Utah applied the Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction Framework in their Dual language Immersion (DLI) programs to facilitate deep mathematical thinking. A brief description of the context will be followed by an explanation of the DLI adapted framework including video examples. 

In this session we will examine how two school districts in Utah applied the Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction Framework in their Dual language Immersion (DLI) programs to facilitate deep mathematical thinking from kindergarten to 6th grade. A brief description of the context, the schools, the program and the framework, will be followed by the DLI adapted framework, video examples of Spanish and English teachers applying the framework in their classrooms, a detailed description of the learning cycle, the collaborative conversation template, lesson plan samples and student work samples. Participants will earn how high expectations combined with highly engaging instruction meets the demands of the Common Core Mathematics Standards.

The Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction Framework (CMI) is a problem based teaching process where teachers select a learning goal, design a problem for exploration and discussion, then solidify students' knowledge and understanding with targeted activities to achieve the learning goal. Instructors design teaching plans which emphasize student exploration, and reactions or responses to certain tasks and engage them in discussions focusing on an understanding of mathemeatical concepts.

CMI has been challenging to apply in DLI calssrooms due to the heavy reliance on academic language as students express their mathematical thinking and attempt to understand other students' ideas. Through langugae scaffolding strategies, the Park City and Wasatch school Districts have fully implemented CMI and are seeing the benefits of a problem-based teaching process.This session will provide an introduction on how to implement the framework with ample resources and examples.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Chinese

Chinese language and immersion programs need Chinese-specific guides to help them better design and implement curriculum while also providing resources for teacher development and parent engagement. Presenters describe three published briefs and other resources that meet this need. Participants and presenters generate a list of other topics for briefs.  

The field of Chinese language and immersion education in grades K-12 is gaining popularity across the United States, and the need for Chinese-specific resources to guide program development, implementation, and sustainability is particularly acute. This presentation will describe a new online resource for the field, a series of Briefs developed by CELIN (Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network) at Asia Society. Development and publication of the Briefs is the result of a national effort. They are written by renowned scholars and experienced practitioners and provide clear and concise guidance that is useful to educators, parents, and policy makers in the areas of curriculum design, instruction, and assessment. The topics of the Briefs that will be presented are: Designing and Implementing Chinese Language Programs: Preparing Students for the Real World (focused on curriculum and instruction); Mapping Chinese Language Learning Outcomes in Grades K-12; and Developing Initial Literacy in Chinese. Participants will become familiar with the content of the Briefs and ways to access, use, and disseminate them; share other resources that they know of or that they have developed on these topics; and co-develop a list of additional resources and topics on which future Briefs can be developed that will support them and others in the field. The session will combine Power Point presentations and Q & A and discussion. It will begin with an overview of the content and development of the Briefs (45 minutes), followed by time for participants to ask questions, share additional resources, and engage in discussion to develop a list of possible future Brief topics and other needed resources (15 minutes). Participants will receive printed material about the Briefs and will be asked to sign in so that they can connect with Chinese language educators and researchers across the country for future information sharing and collaboration.   

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish based on the experience, but it could apply to other language programs

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

High School

Seattle’s Chief Sealth International High School has been running a Spanish immersion continuation program with advanced language and social studies classes since 2013. Teacher leaders and administrators who co-designed the program share the many challenges of developing a high school immersion model and how they can be overcome.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish/English

Elementary (K-5)

How does the inquiry model support language learning? Project-based learning (PBL) that follows the inquiry model integrates language, culture and personal experiences through active participation and investigation in the target language. This session will explore sample K-5 dual language units that are inquiry-based and support PBL.

"Kids are like sponges". This is a common expression when it comes to elementary students and language learning. And it's true that young children typically absorb languages more easily than adults. But, as language teachers, do we want our students to be passive sponges or active explorers and detectives? Effective teachers understand that their students best acquire the target language by doing rather than simply absorbing. But what does this look like in kindergarten, when students are developing basic skills at a novice level or in upper elementary when students have developed more advanced speaking, reading, writing and listening skills?  This session will explore the impact of integrating an inquiry model with project-based learning (PBL) in Spanish immersion K-5 lessons and units. With scaffolding, authentic target language resources, and student-led learning, this lesson format can help the target language come to life for students across grade levels.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Maori language and Hawaiian language

One-Way Developmental Bilingual Education

High School

This presentation will report on a comparative study of the teaching of the Maori and the Hawaiian languages in English-medium secondary schools.   Analysis and extracts of a sample of Maori and Hawaiian language lessons will be discussed, as will some of the issues and critical aspects of the lessons observed.   

This presentation will report on a comparative study of the teaching of the Maori language and the Hawaiian language in English-medium secondary schools.   We report here on the analysis of a sample of Maori language lessons and Hawaiian language lessons taught in the above mentioned secondary schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Hawai’i.  Given that, in the absence of a high level of inter-generational transmission, the ultimate fate of the language rests, to some extent at least, with the success of instructed language learning, therefore, these findings may be of major concern so far as Maori language revitalisation and Hawaiian language revitalisation are concerned.  This presentation will help to address this issue and will focus on critical aspects of the lessons observed, including illustrative extracts from them, and on the implications of the overall approach adopted in relation to students' proficiency development and will also provide some simple ways of moving the teaching into the 21^st century.  What is most evident about this comparative study of the lessons observed both in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Hawai’i are (a) their teacher-centredness, (b) the absence of clearly articulated linguistic objectives and generally also of clear linguistic outcomes, and (c) the fact that, notwithstanding the recommendations that many if not all lessons observed were not communicatively oriented, (d) these lessons relied heavily on repetition, translation and memorization and focused primarily on individual, decontextualized clauses and sentences.  In view of all of this, and particularly in view of the exhaustion that is likely to be associated with teacher-centred lessons in which there is a struggle to communicate with students, it is not surprising to find that many teachers of the Maori language and Hawaiian language feel that they are achieving much less than they could. 

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish, French, Mandarin

Many school leaders use Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching as a professional tool to improve teaching and learning. In this session we will discuss one district’s initiative to embed an immersion-specific lens into three domains of the “Look Fors” document to enhance observation in the immersion classroom.

Many school leaders use Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (2013) as a professional tool to improve teaching and learning. In this session we will discuss one district’s initiative to embed an immersion-specific lens into three of Danielson’s four domains of teaching responsibility.  Drawing on behaviors identified in the Immersion Teaching Strategies Observational Checklist (Fortune, 2014), immersion program leaders and specialists collaborated to adapt the “Look Fors” observational tool used to guide instructionalpractice in the immersion classroom.  Sample videos from one-way and two-way immersion classrooms will be shown for discussion purposes.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Mulitple

Guidelines for effective program implementation are helpful, but campus leaders need access to hands-on tools to turn research-validated principles into practice. Session participants will receive a screening/interviewing tool that is aligned to current research, customizable to individual program features, and designed to maximize program-candidate fit to increase bilingual teacher retention.

The purpose of this demonstration is to share a tool for screening and interviewing bilingual teacher candidates to maximize the likelihood of a good candidate-program fit and thereby increase bilingual teacher retention rates over time. In Texas, the need for certified bilingual teachers far outpaces the supply. As the number of English learners whose home language is Spanish continues to grow, so does interest in serving these students through dual language education, and, in some instances, extending this type of programming to English-fluent students as well. More Texas students are gaining access to various forms of bilingual education, and as a result, there is a growing demand not just for more bilingual teachers, but for bilingual teachers whose skill sets represent a good fit with the goals and requirements of the program in which they are hired to serve. When recruiting to fill a bilingual teacher vacancy, hiring administrators know full well that one size does not fit all. Candidates are recruited to serve students in programs that range from early-exit to late-exit transitional, one-teacher to two-teacher dual language, 90-10 to 50-50 dual language, and one-way to two-way models. Hiring administrators need tools that are aligned to current research, customizable to their unique district and campus needs, and designed to maximize candidate-program fit. In this session, the presenter will demonstrate the use of a screening/interviewing tool that is aligned with the Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education, a trusted framework for effective program implementation. The tool includes suggestions for screening for candidate language and literacy proficiency in English and Spanish, as well as interview techniques designed to target and gauge competency in the skills that are unique to the bilingual/dual language educator. Participants will leave the session with a tool in hand for immediate use at their sites.

Discussion Session (1 hour)

Spanish

One-Way Developmental Bilingual Education

An interactive discussion exploring a grassroots Spanish heritage language program, Immersion for Spanish Language Acquisition (ISLA), and its influence in shaping cultural identity and literacy development of the Hispanic families it serves through cultural socialization and familism. This research takes an in-depth look at the processes of promoting cultural competence and pride in Hispanic youth.  

Benavides Research Support is in the process of completing an exploratory study researching the experiences and perspectives of the Hispanic community participating in ISLA (Immersion for Spanish Language Acquisition); a grassroots Spanish heritage language program. Through our study we are looking to gain greater insight into the influence of ISLA on students’ and their parents’ Spanish literacy and cultural identity development. In using the alternation theory as our theoretical framework we are finding that ISLA functions as an acculturation facilitator by promoting bicultural competency in both parent and child through cultural socialization and familism.

ISLA is a non-profit heritage language literacy program created with the intent of supporting the heritage Spanish-speaking population in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a heritage program, one of ISLA’s goals is to strengthen personal and familial cultural agency by encouraging ethnic and lingual pride through a culturally responsive curriculum. ISLA’s curriculum and pedagogical practices were designed to entail the wide variety of cultures, languages, customs, indigenous knowledge and beliefs of our Latin American heritage students and their families. Cultural awareness and competence are a high priority for the ISLA community, therefore it is embedded into every aspect of the curriculum. The curriculum is based on student centered learning, is solely taught in Spanish and focuses on four conceptual units: Our Culture and History; Ourselves; Our Systems; and Our Natural World.

ISLA is a center of support for the entire family providing parents English classes, guidance, and access to valuable resources. The parents’ group shares different skills and cultural knowledge that they then use to further the program through fundraising strategies. In addition, parent participation is required with “Tiempo Cultural” which brings parents into the classroom to pass down knowledge, stories, or histories from their cultural heritage.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Portuguese dual-language programs

What are the current programs dedicated to developing Portuguese biliteracy in the U.S.? What are some of the common challenges and aims of these programs? What are the main principles and content for Portuguese dual-immersion curriculum? This presentation aims to offer an overview of teaching Portuguese from Grades K-8.

What are the current programs dedicated to developing Portuguese biliteracy in the U.S.? What are some of the common challenges and common aims of Portuguese dual-language programs? What are the main principles and contents for Portuguese dual-immersion curriculum? The presentation aims to offer and overview of teaching Portuguese for k-8 in the U.S. answering these questions related to program design and curriculum development. The session will discuss curriculum guidelines for teachers working in these programs exploring research-based contents and methods that are more efficient for teaching bilingual students. The session will also share project-based learning experiences of teaching Portuguese as a heritage language using authentic materials and through meaningful tasks.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

French dual language and immersion programs in the US take on many shapes and forms to answer the needs of the community. The two dominant trends in program creation are state-led initiatives and grassroots initiatives. This presentation features recent initiatives undertaken in French immersion and bilingual programs across the nation.

French dual language and immersion programs in the US take on many shapes and forms to answer the needs of the community. This paper introduces key findings from our national survey. The two dominant trends in program creation are state-led initiatives and grassroots initiatives. Louisiana and Utah exemplify the state-led model, where the state legislature enables school districts to create immersion programs. Such initiatives can facilitate easier recruitment of bilingual teachers; help accelerate the creation of curricula; and normalize foreign/second language development standards across the state. Georgia is also in the early development stages of supporting a dual language initiative. Beyond the economic benefits of teaching students a second language, states see a means to accelerate learning, to keep students from dropping out of school, to increase academic outcomes, and to close the achievement gap. French dual language programs have existed across the United States for decades. From Montgomery to Minneapolis, the catalysts behind the foundation of these programs have included visionary principals, motivated parents and dedicated community leaders.  Often, the motivation of the community is to prepare students to collaborate and communicate across linguistic and political boundaries. In the case of New York, where half of the students are French dominant and come from French-speaking families, the motivation is also to maintain and perfect the children’s native language skills. For a large majority of schools, the French immersion program was created because of the school leadership’s interest in French bilingual education or because French-speaking families applying to the school asked for it. For most school leaders interviewed, these programs can be expanded to other schools in the district or state. Yet, the shortage in qualified teachers - who have both the language fluency skills and the combined education credentials – needs to be taken into account during the expansion.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This study, designed to investigate teachers' written corrective feedback (WCF) in French immersion classes, both elementary and secondary, indicates that WCF practices vary across educational level, learner proficiency and error type. Students' ability to revise following the provided WCF depends on the WCF technique and on learner proficiency level.

Providing corrective feedback on learners’ errors in writing (WCF) is one of the main hallmarks of second language teaching. Research indicates that WCF promotes second langue learning (Ortega, 2012). Most research focused on the effects of different WCF techniques (Van Beuningen et al. 2012). Little descriptive research has been undertaken to uncover how feedback is provided (Guénette & Lyster, 2013; Lee, 2008) and how students use it. The moderating effects of intervening variables have been rarely accounted for despite calls to do so (Kormos, 2012). The present descriptive study sets out to investigate French immersion teachers’ WCF practices across educational levels; the extent to which those practices vary across error type and learner proficiency level; and if students are able to use the provided WCF.

Six French immersion teachers from two different educational levels (3 elementary, 3 secondary) and their respective classes participated in the study. Twelve students (4 low proficiency, 4 high proficiency, and 4 with learning difficulties) were selected from each class (n=72). They were asked to produce a first draft that was followed by the teacher’s WCF and by revision. Teacher feedback and student revision were analysed in relation to error type and student proficiency level. Two independent judges coded 10% of the data to ensure the reliability of the coding categories.

Results indicate that teachers’ WCF practices vary across educational level, learner proficiency and error type. First, while indirect feedback is the teachers’ technique of choice in elementary school, it is less prevalent in secondary classes. Low proficiency learners receive indirect WCF more often than their high proficiency peers. When addressing syntactic errors, instructors opt for direct feedback; however, they rely more on indirect techniques to signal errors of grammatical morphology. Finally, students’ ability to repair following WCF varies across WCF techniques and learner proficiency level.

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

no language specific

High School

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) strategically used Minnesota's new state Bilingual Seal to identify and recognize heritage language students’ college credit eligible linguistic skills. The MPS journey, success story, and challenges will inspire attendees to envision systematic support and recognition of heritage language learners in their own contexts.

Using newly legislated Bilingual Seals, 500 MPS students became eligible for college credit including Hmong, Somali and Spanish heritage speakers.  MPS was innovative in strategically identifying bilingual students outside of world language classrooms.  Our effort empowered heritage language students and families and connected them to a college pathway.  The effort involved a comprehensive strategy of student identification, outreach campaign to  families,  creation of appropriate assessments, training and coordinating of raters in multiple languages, test scheduling, legislative advocacy,  a public celebration of multilingualism which connected students,  school district, higher education, state administrators and  community leaders.  Participants will leave with a vision and checklist of a comprehensive approach to recognize and support Heritage learners path towards careers built on their 21st century linguistic skills based on Minneapolis Public Schools model.