The International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: A Brief History

Conference Founder: The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA)

The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), began in 1993 as one of the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI Language Resource Centers, with a mission to improve the nation's capacity to teach and learn languages. Since its inception one of the priorities at CARLA has been to support immersion and dual language education through research and professional development initiatives. Towards that end, CARLA organized and hosted a series of international conferences dedicated to the exchange of professional practices, research findings, and resources among immersion and dual language professionals.

The inaugural International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education took place in 1995 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN with approximately 250 participants. Subsequent conferences hosted by CARLA in 2004, 2008, and 2012 experienced growing numbers of participants and an expanded program that included school visits and pre-conference workshops. Increased interest in the field and CARLA's desire to make the conference a biennial event led to the development of partnerships to host the conference at alternate venues. While CARLA hosted the conference once every four years, collaboration with state partners (Utah, 2014; North Carolina, 2019) served to make the conference available once every two years, extend outreach to educators on the east and west coasts, and meet the growing interest in immersion and dual language education around the world. At the last conference held in Minnesota in 2016 nearly 1,000 participants attended from 39 states and Washington D.C., and 20 countries, with a similar number attending the conference held in 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The goal of this unique conference was to bridge the divides within immersion and dual language education – between researchers and practitioners, between national and international colleagues, and among PreK-20 immersion and dual language program professionals who serve a variety of learner audiences, including language majority, language minority, and indigenous learners. Towards this end, the International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education convened a rich mix of educators who shared a common purpose: to provide a high-quality subject-based language program that promotes academic achievement and learner success through bilingualism and biliteracy. By bringing together diverse strands of this common thread the conference sought to foster broad-based professional dialogue and information exchange for more effective educational practice and improved outcomes for all learners.

Due to changes in U.S. Department of Education funding and personnel, CARLA decided not to continue the biennial cycle for the International Conference on Immersion & Dual Language Education at this time.

We wish to extend our sincerest gratitude to our international and U.S. partners and to all those who have participated in and actively supported this conference. It has been our privilege to have served among such dedicated professionals. CARLA looks forward to new opportunities for continuing important cross-context dialogue in the field of immersion and dual language education in the years to come.

Tara Williams Fortune, Director of Immersion Research and Professional Development
Kate Paesani, Director

Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition – University of Minnesota

March 2019