The French immersion experience in Montreal, since its inception in 1965, is considered highly successful. Despite critics who note that its results fall short of perfect bilingualism, French immersion has achieved what it set out to accomplish: functional bilingual competencies. In doing so, French immersion has challenged many assumptions about…

Little data are available concerning the native languages of Scandinavian residents, other than the official languages, despite the linguistic diversity of the region. Foreign language teaching starts early in schooling, but there has been little study of actual language needs. Three basic program designs are available for teaching foreign…

Three studies are presented, each of which is a comparison of the acquisition of an aspect of the French verb system by three groups of speakers. The speakers are: young Anglophones learning French as a second language in an early French immersion program in Montreal; young monolingual Francophones attending elementary French language schools in…

Spanish translations of 19 of the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Public Schools' elementary school science units are presented. The materials were translated for use in a partial immersion program. Unit topics include, among others: magnets, organisms (grade 1), seeds and plants (grade 1), butterflies (grade 2), electricity (grade 3), the food chain…

The level of bilingualism of high school students entering Ottawa bilingual programs after having attended early- or late-immersion French programs in elementary school was evaluated by comparing student test scores to outside criteria. On a reading and grammar-based test, the immersion students did not perform as well as native francophone…

A response to the de Kanter/Baker draft report, "The Effectiveness of Bilingual Education: A Review of the Literature," the monograph argues that: the report contains many misinterpretations of theoretical work in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and educational research and of the empirical evidence on the efficacy of second language…

A second language program developed at Wilson College (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania) with a federal grant uses the Rassias Method of theatrical, dramatic language saturation. In the first application of the program at the college, peer tutors (who would be assistant teachers in the subsequent immersion program) were trained in a three-day workshop.…

This manual for third grade French instruction accompanies the early French immersion program. It is based on general and specific learning objectives for the four language skills the child needs to develop. The introduction to the manual provides an overview of the program for the primary grades and learning objectives for the four language…

The directory gives information on all preschool through high school bilingual immersion programs, also called two-way bilingual education programs, in the United States that have been identified as being in operation in 1987. The first section discusses the definition of and rationale for bilingual immersion education. The second section profiles…

Examples of four kinds of elementary school programs in second language instruction are described: eight Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) programs, one Foreign Language Experience or Foreign Language Exploration (FLEX) program, one partial immersion program, and one total immersion program. An introductory section provides…

This literature review looked at core French (programs of French as a second language taught as a subject) as opposed to immersion French in terms of starting grade, instructional time, instructional materials, children could bring bilingual experience to learning French, starting age is less important than sometimes argued. Neither starting age…

An immersion program in a public elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland, uses French as the medium of instruction in academic subjects. The program is based on the theory that language is learned best when there is a need to understand and communicate in that language. All students are eligible for enrollment in the multi-age classes.…

A book on second languages in primary education, designed to assist both classroom teachers and language specialists, is presented. The following topics are addressed: (1) reasons for studying a second language; (2) reasons for children to learn a second language; (3) language choices; (4) qualifications of teachers; (5) FLES, bilingual education,…

A program for early identification of children who are a high risk for failure in a primary French immersion program was undertaken in Ontario, Canada. As the last year of a three-year project, the investigation was designed to identify a set of variables predictive of success or failure in the primary program. The predictive validity of measures…

The goal of this study is to discover the phonetic difficulties encountered in the acquisition of French as a second language by English-speaking children. The children are studying French in a total immersion situation without benefit of structural exercises or special French language laboratory classes. Of particular interest here is the extent…