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Schools are under increasing pressure to reclassify their English learner (EL) students to \"fluent English proficient\" status as quickly as possible. This article examines timing to reclassification among Latino ELs in four distinct linguistic instructional environments: English immersion, transitional bilingual, maintenance bilingual, and dual immersion. Using hazard analysis and 12 years of data from a large school district, the study investigates whether reclassification timing, patterns, or barriers differ by linguistic program. We find that Latino EL students enrolled in two-language programs are reclassified at a slower pace in elementary school but have higher overall reclassification, English proficiency, and academic threshold passage by the end of high school. We discuss the implications of these findings for accountability policies and educational opportunities in EL programs.

Language immersion has been an emerging educational method for K-12 students to acquire foreign languages. Despite its effectiveness, there are limited teacher education programs designed specifically for language immersion educators. Thus, many language immersion teachers have been applying knowledge learned from general teacher educational programs, which are not designed for language immersion settings, in their daily teaching. Simultaneously, language immersion programs, especially Chinese immersion programs, have identified multiple educational challenges related to curriculum design and content teaching, classroom management, and cross-cultural communications. This study aims to address these challenges from the perceptions of six selected Chinese immersion teachers towards their teacher preparation programs via qualitative in-depth case studies. The participant selection considers various education and teaching backgrounds of Chinese immersion teachers to represent a wide range of perspectives. The results show that the educational philosophy and psychology theories and practices, curriculum and instruction, cross-cultural competence, and practicum in existing preparation programs contribute positively towards immersion teaching in the U.S. However, Chinese immersion teachers demand more social-emotional learning and diversity, equity, and inclusion preparation. Potential solutions to these challenges require synergistic efforts from the current teacher preparation programs, Chinese immersion programs, and policymakers.

Research on immersion teaching has consistently shown that immersion teachers tend to focus on subject matter content at the expense of language teaching. The response to that research has often entailed suggestions for teachers on how better to integrate language and content in their instruction. However, missing from the discussion are rich descriptions of the actual experiences that immersion teachers have as they attempt to balance language and content in their teaching. This phenomenological study aims to address this gap by exploring teachers' lived experience with content and language integration. In this article, authors report on findings suggesting that immersion teachers' experience with balancing language and content is a multifaceted struggle involving issues related to teacher identity, stakeholder expectations, and understandings regarding the relationship between language and content. Implications for school-based support for immersion programs as well as calls for reform in immersion teacher preparation and professional development are shared.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficacy of foreign immersion programs in terms of increasing cross-cultural awareness among university students in business, accounting, human resources and agriculture. The authors extrapolate from their population to the practice of developing business professionals on international assignments. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper presents findings of a four-year, government-sponsored university exchange program involving 40 professional management and agriculture science students from four US and Brazilian top research universities who participated in a semester-long study abroad experience. Pre-departure and post-exchange data were collected using the well-established Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). In addition, the authors collected academic performance data and verbal mid- and end-project personal assessments. Two of the authors of this paper served as project directors, the third as evaluation specialist. Findings: Despite intensive pre-departure preparation, in-country support and cultural immersion, the research subjects failed to attain significant and consistently higher levels of intercultural awareness. Students tended to overestimate their own level of cross-cultural competence both before and after the program. While students tended to perform well academically and voiced high levels of satisfaction with their own overseas stay, objective measures of cross-cultural awareness did not mirror these outcomes. Research Limitations/Implications: Multiple measures of cross-cultural competence exist, and it is possible that the development in areas other than those measured by the IDI did take place. It is also sensible to assume that cognitive development might take longer and was not captured by the post-test right after return. Practical Implications: The paper suggests that cross-cultural development requires carefully designed interventions, feedback and mentoring/coaching. Simply sending individuals on overseas assignments, no matter how well prepared and supported by the institution, does not guarantee the development of multi-cultural attitudes and cognitive frames of mind. Social Implications: The development of cross-cultural competence has been described as a central concern for universities and workplaces alike. The burgeoning research literature on cross-cultural development reflects not only the importance of the topic but also the struggle to find effective pedagogical and andragogical approaches to fostering such development in university students, expatriate managers, working professionals and members of the workforce in general. Originality/Value: The paper presents evaluation findings of a carefully designed and well-supported exchange program over a period of four years and involving three cohorts of students. These students are at the cusp of moving into the workplace, where many will assume professional and leadership positions in international settings. Given the high failure rate of international development and placement and the increasing global interconnectedness of academic and business organizations, the paper suggests the need for carefully designed and well-supported overseas programs to maximize cross-cultural development.

The authors of this chapter review empirical studies that have been conducted in bilingual education to propose a future research agenda that incorporates the most recent evidence on the effectiveness of bilingual programs, advances in neuroscience, and the body of evidence of the benefits of being bilingual and biliterate. They first describe the historical and sociopolitical precedent of how bilingual education came to play a determinant role in U.S. education. Next, they summarize reviews that have been conducted examining the effects of bilingual education on the academic performance of English learners from 1985 until 2003. They then review the research on bilingual education since 2003. Although the majority of studies reviewed focused on reading, the authors aho found studies that compared the effects of bilingual programs on other academic outcomes such as writing, science, and mathematics, inside and outside the United States. In addition, they address the benefits of bilingualism on cognition and discuss the research on cross-linguistic transfer to help the reader better understand the transfer of skills between the native language and the second language within the context of bilingual programs. They end the chapter with recommendations for future research.

This comparative analysis of teacher-student interaction in two different instructional settings at the elementary-school level (18.3 hr in French immersion and 14.8 hr Japanese immersion) investigates the immediate effects of explicit correction, recasts, and prompts on learner uptake and repair. The results clearly show a predominant provision of recasts over prompts and explicit correction, regardless of instructional setting, but distinctively varied student uptake and repair patterns in relation to feedback type, with the largest proportion of repair resulting from prompts in French immersion and from recasts in Japanese immersion. Based on these findings and supported by an analysis of each instructional setting's overall communicative orientation, we introduce the counterbalance hypothesis, which states that instructional activities and interactional feedback that act as a counterbalance to a classroom's predominant communicative orientation are likely to prove more effective than instructional activities and interactional feedback that are congruent with its predominant communicative orientation.This research was supported by Standard Research Grants (410-98-0175 and 410-2002-0988) awarded to the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by a Nihon University Individual Research Grant for 2005 awarded to the second author. A version of this study was presented at the Second Language Research Forum held at Columbia University in October 2005. We are especially grateful to the participating teachers and their students and also to Yingli Yang for her role as research assistant in aggregating the datasets. We thank Sue Gass, Alison Mackey, Iliana Panova, Leila Ranta, and two SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

The defining feature of immersion language learning is the omnipresent pressure to communicate in the second language (L2), even as incipient skills are being acquired. This study uses the focused essay technique to investigate ambivalence about communicating among adolescent French immersion students (12–14 years of age). Students described situations in which they were most willing to communicate (241 entries received) and situations in which they were least willing to communicate (179 entries received). Responses reveal complex interrelations among linguistic development, L2 self-development, and the nonlinguistic issues that typically face adolescents. Most frequently, students discussed communication with teachers and friends in a school context, but other entries described situations outside the classroom, with extended family or encounters with media. Perceived competence and error correction were identified as major issues. Students also described feeling excluded or mocked because of their status as immersion students, but at other times they used language to form a secret club to exclude or poke fun at other people. Although we found substantial similarities between situations in which students are most or least willing to communicate, they can be differentiated by subtle changes in context that affect the authenticity of communication and needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Quality science education is crucial in preparing students for real-world challenges by fostering scientific literacy and critical thinking skills. Field trips and work immersion programs support this goal by providing hands-on experiences and real-world applications of scientific concepts, thereby enhancing student engagement and understanding. This autoethnographic study explores the management of school field trips and work immersion programs, emphasising their impact on student engagement and learning outcomes. Through personal experiences and reflective practices, I examine the logistical planning, risk management, and curriculum alignment necessary for successful implementation. The findings highlight how these programs enhance students’ understanding of scientific principles, foster critical thinking, and encourage STEM career interests. Key strategies include collaborative planning, flexibility, and ongoing evaluation, providing insights into optimising educational programs and bridging the gap between classroom learning and real-world application.

Two‐way bilingual immersion education, offered in a fast‐growing number of primary schools in the United States, provides primary language maintenance to minority language speakers while simultaneously offering an enrichment “foreign” language immersion experience to English‐speaking children in the same classroom, generally with the same teacher. This fusion of two different groups of children, two different sets of expectations, is controversial: Is it possible to accomplish both goals at once, or will teacher and program inevitably end up serving the needs of dominant English‐speaking children first? The equation is further complicated when the English speakers in a program come from mainly highly educated middle‐class families, and the Spanish speakers come from mainly working‐class immigrant families, as is the case in many of these programs. Drawing on audio and video data from a year‐long study in a second‐grade two‐way classroom that shares this class gap between language groups, and using a methodology that fuses ethnography and discourse analysis, this article explores the ways English‐speaking children can impact classroom conversational dynamics.

This article presents research that highlights the success of dual language education for student participants, both native English speakers and English language learners, from a variety of demographic backgrounds at both the elementary and secondary levels. However, there are a number of challenges that can impede the quality of implementation in dual language programs. This article identifies and discusses some of these important challenges facing dual language programs, including issues related to program design, accountability, curriculum and instruction related to biliteracy, and bilingual language development. In addition, implications for practice are presented to address some of these challenges.