Chinese immersion programs have been increasingly popular in US schools. However, we have insufficient data on young English-speaking children's acquisition of Chinese as a second language in these programs, and specifically on social contextual variables systematically promoting or hindering Chinese language use. Taking a variationist…

The participation of multilingual children in minority language immersion programmes is under-researched internationally. The Republic of Ireland (RoI) has become a linguistically and culturally diverse society. In the RoI, parents have the opportunity to educate their child in English-medium or Irish-medium (IM) schools. However, the cohort of…

This paper examines the construct of bilingual phonemic awareness in Irish-English bilinguals. Though traditionally viewed as a skill or ability which transfers across languages, recent accounts have considered whether phonemic awareness has a language-specific component. This study used a cross-sectional design to examine this question. A total…

As Two-Way Dual Language Programs continue in their nascent stages in the United States, some teachers, administrators, and researchers have reported issues of interest convergence. This construct refers to a Critical Theory principle that proposes alignment between the interests of whites and marginalized groups for a perceived common benefit,…

This qualitative study examines strategies used by children in a kindergarten dual language immersion (DLI) class, when enacting and negotiating intersecting social constructions such as ethnicity, social class, and bilingualism. Drawing on data collected during the 2017-2018 academic year, this paper uses an intersectional lens to describe the…

Children learning Chinese must cope with an opaque orthography lacking transparent relations between oral pronunciations and written characters: a challenge heightened for L2 learners. Use of digital Pinyin input may facilitate connections between oral and written language by allowing learners to access vocabulary they cannot yet write. We…

While translanguaging has been adequately researched in various educational sectors, there is scant research at the primary-level English-L2 classroom in the Chinese educational context. Within a monolingual English-only immersion policy favoured by the state in China for many decades now, translanguaging has been a debated issue recently. Within…

The rising demand for dual-language immersion (DLI) programs, which offer core instruction in two languages from early grades onward, has raised questions about program design and access. We leverage the rapid expansion of DLI schools across the U.S. state of Utah to estimate effects of DLI program availability on the academic achievement of…

Many educators in immersion contexts support a policy of strict separation of languages in the classroom as the ideal model for second language acquisition and are reluctant to make connections between the dominant language, the target language and pupils' home languages. This can result in missed opportunities for drawing on pupils' entire…

We investigated spelling errors in English and Spanish essays by Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 1, 2, and 3 (N = 278; 51% female) enrolled in either English immersion or English-Spanish dual immersion programs. We examined what types of spelling errors students made, whether they made spelling errors that could be due to…

For decades, the O'odham language has been in decline. But like many tribal nations, the Tohono O'odham are working to reclaim their language. Located on the campus of Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC), the center was founded in 2020 and is for all O'odham, including those from other O'odham speaking nations. Creating opportunities where the…

This research uses a descriptive quantitative statistical design to examine campus-level results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR). The focus is on describing the achievement disparities between campuses that implemented Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) programs and those implementing Dual Language (DL)…

Multilingualism is often associated with advantages for acquiring additional languages. Theoretical approaches explain these advantages by assuming a Common Underlying Proficiency or a Metalinguistic Awareness. At the State Europe School in Berlin, students from different language backgrounds receive instruction in German and a partner language…

Despite an increasing interest in pronunciation instruction in English as a majority language or international "lingua franca," less is known about pronunciation learning in non-English minority languages, especially among child learners. Bilingual education programs provide a unique context to address this research gap, as they involve…

Despite the increasing popularity of dual language education programs in Taiwan, limited research assesses their effectiveness. This study evaluated eight English Immersion Programs (EIPs) in Taiwan, representing a dual language education model, using the "Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education" (GPDLE) framework. Interviews with…