The educational community has used a variety of terms over the years to refer to schooling in two languages. Among them,
dual language education and
dual language immersion are used interchangeably as umbrella terms over other terms such as
bilingual immersion,
bilingual enrichment,
developmental bilingual and
heritage language immersion. For the purposes of this project, we will use
dual language immersion as the overarching term to emphasize that students are being schooled in two languages in an immersive setting.
The
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) defines dual language immersion, or dual language education, in the following way: “In dual language education programs, students are taught literacy and academic content in English and a partner language. The goals of dual language are for students to develop high levels of language proficiency and literacy in both program languages, to demonstrate high levels of academic achievement, and to develop an appreciation for and an understanding of diverse cultures.“
The
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) offers the following core characteristics of dual language immersion:
- Additive bilingualism with sustained instruction through the majority language (English) and the minority language (e.g. German)
- Subject area instruction through the minority language occurs for at least 50% of the school day during the elementary school years
- Teachers are fully proficient in the language(s) they use for instruction
- Support for the majority language is strong and present in the community at large
- Clear and sustained separation of languages during instructional time
In the U.S., we distinguish between two types of dual language immersion programs,
one-way and
two-way. The distinction is based on the differences in the student populations each program type predominantly serves.
One-way dual language immersion (also referred to as
foreign language immersion): This type of program predominantly supports one “language group” of students (e.g. native English speakers) to become bilingual, biliterate and bicultural in an additional language, e.g. Chinese, French, German, Russian or Spanish. However, students whose home language is a language other than English also populate one-way programs. The home language might match the partner language, or it might be different from it, for example a student with Arabic language background might participate in an English/German dual language immersion program.
Two-way dual language immersion: Two-way dual language immersion programs serve two language groups together in the same classroom, one group that is English-speaking and another that uses a language other than English as its dominant home language. “Two-way” signals that these two language groups, English and for example German, move simultaneously towards each other’s languages. To serve both language groups equally well, either group should make up no less than one third of the classroom.
Other terms that may be used for two-way dual language immersion include
bilingual immersion,
bilingual enrichment, and
developmental bilingual. However, bilingual enrichment is often used for programs with less than 50% of the school day taught in the partner language. Also, we typically refer to programs as developmental bilingual if they are mostly populated by English learners rather than two equally represented language groups.
The structure of one-way and two-way dual language immersion programs varies, but they all provide at least 50% of instruction in the partner language at all grade levels beginning in pre-K, Kindergarten, or first grade and running at least five years, through grade 5 but preferably through Grade 12.
Further terms and their definitions can be found on the pages of
Two-Way Immersion Outreach Project by Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL).
