Final Performance Report 1996-2000
Teacher Development Project:
Focus on Immersion

The Teacher Development Project: Focus on Immersion had two components: research on immersion teaching and the development of a national network for immersion teachers. The research project entitled "Describing Effective Immersion Teaching" was led by Professors Diane Tedick and Constance Walker and involved an exploration of the instructional challenges faced by immersion teachers. The project was conducted with 6 Spanish immersion teachers, using focus groups, interviews, and videotaped classroom observations. Professor Tedick and Tara Fortune initiated and coordinated the national network component of this project, creating an ongoing national forum for immersion educators and administrators to connect and supporting the development of resources for immersion education. The full reports for both project components are outlined below.

Describing Effective Immersion Teaching

Identify Research Subjects and Secure Permission for Research
A total of six teachers were invited and agreed to participate in the project. Two teachers at each of three Spanish immersion schools in the metro area were selected, one a native speaker of Spanish and one a non-native speaker of Spanish at each site. Once the teachers were identified, the group met to collaboratively establish the main focus for the research. The process for securing permission to conduct the research was lengthy because of the need to apply to the U of M's Institutional Review Board in addition to the research and evaluation review boards for each of the three school districts involved. The process of gaining approval to conduct the study and obtaining consent from all parties took months before videotape portion of data collection could take place in April 1999.

Conduct Research on Immersion Teaching
The research began with a focus group with the six participating teachers in the fall of 1998 to explore ideas for the study and to refine the focus based on their interests and questions. Owing to the collaborative nature of this process, the focus of the study was altered slightly to involve the teachers in the research process, which is reflected in the study's revised title "Immersion Teachers Explore the Issues: A Collaborative Examination of Effective Immersion Teaching Practices." The group decided together that each teacher would determine a question about her teaching that she would explore individually and together with the researchers and the other participating teachers. The research questions that guided the study were:

• 1) What questions are practicing immersion teachers currently interested in exploring about their teaching?
• 2) Based on teachers' individual, inquiry-based, classroom teaching explorations through action research,
  • a) what conceptions of immersion teaching emerge from their topic explorations?
  • b) how do their conceptualizations inform practice and in what ways does new knowledge emerge from an examination of practice both individually and within the cohort?
  • c) how does such awareness inform and/or change practice?
• 3) In what ways does the experience of individual and collaborative reflection on immersion teaching practices with other practitioners and teacher educator/researchers shape the knowledge, thinking, and professional growth of these teachers?

Individual 60-90 minute interviews were held with each participating teacher during the initial months of 1999 to help the teachers focus their thoughts, ideas, and interests to formulate a research question. The following questions were formulated by the teacher participants:

• In the context of math instruction, how can I expand student use of verb tenses beyond the present tense? (3rd grade, native speaker)
• What is the nature of my (teacher) language during math instruction? (3rd grade, non-native speaker)
• In a dual immersion setting, how can I increase student motivation and success in reading fiction (short novels, short stories, poetry) in Spanish through effective pre-reading strategies? (6th grade, non-native speaker)
• What are the effective strategies and techniques I use during reading instruction to teach native Spanish-speaking students who have difficulty expressing themselves in either English or Spanish? How can I build their oral language base and experiences so that their language acquisition and reading ability improve? (2nd grade, native speaker)
• In the context of social studies instruction, how can I balance content and language instruction so that students are developing the more sophisticated language structures they need to understand the content? (5th grade, native speaker)
• In the context of social studies instruction, how can I embed Spanish grammar concepts? For example, how can I incorporate reinforcement of verb forms in as many ways as possible? (3rd grade, non-native speaker).

During the months of April and May 1999, each teacher was videotaped a total of four times. After each videotaping episode, the teachers were asked to view the videotapes individually and reflect orally on their teaching as it corresponded to the research question they had identified. Their oral reflections were audiotaped. After a focus group with the participating teachers, a brief report of the research study was published in the May 1999 issue of the American Council on Immersion Education (ACIE) Newsletter and a more in-depth synopsis of the study was put on the CARLA website. This research project provided an opportunity for a small group of immersion teachers to examine their own practice, to reflect on what they see, and to share such thoughts with peers began a valuable base of information on the unique world of immersion education.

Developing a National Immersion Network

Create and Support a National Immersion Network
Launched in 1997, the American Council on Immersion Education (ACIE), worked throughout the grant cycle to build support and membership nationally and at the end of August 2000, ACIE had over 162 members from 32 states. In order to establish a sustainable immersion network using ACIE as a vehicle, the project members Professor Diane Tedick and Professor Constance Walker along with ACIE project assistant Tara Fortune and ACIE editor Kim Miller explored the following options for ACIE over the long term: 1) ACIE could become part of the National Network of Early Language Learning NNELL, 2) it could function as a Special Interest Group within the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, or 3) it could potentially become a self-sustaining organization with enough membership. The creation of a sustainable foundation for ACIE remains a high priority for CARLA in its third funding cycle.

Produce Newsletters for National Immersion Network
Nine issues of the ACIE Newsletter were published and disseminated by the end of August 2000, and ACIE membership grew to 162. The newsletters have been extensive and include articles in a variety of columns including: Best Practices, Tips for New Teachers, Technology Information, Research Reports, Points for Parents, Editorials. The newsletter also includes an insert named "the Bridge," which summarizes research on a particular topic and describes how the research can be applied in the classroom, each of which has been put up on the CARLA website for easy access by immersion teachers. Articles have been contributed by teachers, parents, administrators, and scholars in the field. ACIE Newsletters have been distributed at national conferences and each fall multiple copies have been sent to all the immersion schools listed in the database administered by the Center for Applied Linguistics and the CARLA database along with materials about becoming a member. The newsletters continue to receive very favorable reviews.

In addition to the newsletter, LIM-A, the listserv for immersion educators which has been in operation since 1996, continued to serve as an ongoing vehicle for information exchange and had over 216 subscribers at the end of the reporting period. The CARLA Immersion website was updated in the summer of 1999 and again in the summer of 2000 and continues to provide a wealth of information to those interested in immersion education. The website now includes,among other additions, an extensive annotated bibliography on immersion education issues, a checklist for teachers to use in professional development, and answers to frequently asked questions about immersion education.

Develop and Offer Summer Institutes for Immersion Teachers
The first summer study institute for immersion teachers entitled "Meeting the Challenges of Immersion Education" took place July 7-11, 1997 and has been offered each summer since that time. Each summer institute featured nationally known figures in immersion education including Roy Lyster, Helena Curtain, Mimi Met, and Pat Barr-Harrison. Each year the institute has drawn a large number of participants representing a variety of states and countries and reached full capacity of forty teachers in summer 1999 and 2000. This foundation led to the development of an additional summer institute geared specifically at novice immersion teachers and program administrators to be offered in the summer of 2001.

Using the Immersion Project as a base, Professors Tedick and Walker received a U.S.D.E. research grant entitled "Developing Content Curriculum for Language Immersion Education: A Group Studies Abroad Project to Development Science Curriculum for U.S. Spanish Immersion Programs." In summer 1999 Tedick and Walker led a group of ten Spanish immersion teachers to Ecuador to create a content-based curriculum focused on the theme of biodiversity. The curriculum was featured in the fall 1999 ACIE newsletter and will be published through the CARLA working paper series in December 2000.

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