Friendly/Unfriendly Immersion
Practices
The ACIE Newsletter, February 2004, Vol.
7, No. 2
Thanks to Karen Pedersen, principal of Emerson
Spanish Immersion in Minneapolis, MN, for her thoughts about
the kind of practices that encourage or discourage the growth
of second language proficiency within the context of an immersion
school. Her ideas were further expanded by the members of
Minnesota Advocates for Immersion Network, a consortium of
immersion educators in the Twin Cities area.
Unfriendly Practices: State/District
Level |
Friendly Practices: State/District Level |
Admissions: Admission of monolingual
English speakers after grade 2
Teacher recruitment and hiring: Little/no
flexibility from state for teacher licensure waivers
to recruit native speakers
Staffing: Support personnel are monolingual;
collective bargaining issues that sometimes force immersion
schools to employ monolingual district employees
Curriculum: District level decisions
that do not take immersion into account, do not budget
for materials in L2
Staff development: District staff development
days tied up with non-immersion training for teachers
|
Admissions: Uphold policies (like
only placing students who choose program and maintain
balance of language-dominance in dual-immersion program)
Teacher recruitment and hiring: Provide
legal advice regarding visa issues for teachers coming
from another country; policy of “early hire”
for immersion schools
Staffing: Extra funding to hire support
staff who are bilingual
Curriculum: Implement content area
curriculum that exists in L2 rather than adopt materials
that have to be adapted/translated
Staff development: Exemption from some
required district staff development to be replaced with
immersion specific training
|
Unfriendly Practices: School Level |
Friendly Practices: School Level |
Language use: Signs, announcements
in English; unlimited parent access to classroom disrupting
use of immersion language
Specialists: Monolingual staff feel
marginalized when bilingual staff is speaking immersion
language
Classroom-community connections: No
attention to such connections
Staff development: No acknowledgement
of need to have immersion-focused staff development
|
Language use: Signs, announcements
in immersion language; limited involvement in the classroom
of parents who do not speak the immersion language;
established procedure for evaluating immersion language
proficiency of teaching candidates; conduct staff meetings
in immersion language; native speaking teaching assistants
to model language use
Specialists: Identify themes in the specialist’s
curriculum (art, music, phy ed, etc) where culture learning
can be incorporated.
Classroom-community connections: Service-learning
projects with speakers of immersion language to increase
motivation to use the language; use of technology to
access a real audience for students’ work; travel
opportunities for older students with family stays
Staff development: Mentoring for new
teachers by someone with high L2 skills to mentor both
instructional practices and language use; chaperone
student travel to improve own language skills
|
