Considers different approaches to teaching culture within foreign language (FL) classes in Great Britain with the object of making a realistic suggestion on how to integrate language and culture. Particular focus is on FL students at the lower and intermediate levels, where cultural input is often omitted. (six references) (CK)

Discusses and dispels four myths about second-language education. Shows that ample evidence favors bilingualism, bilingual education, and literacy in children's native languages as the means to help children grow academically. Offers "best practices" recommendations regarding program, methods, materials, and parental involvement. (SR)

Analysis of language production skills of French immersion students in grades 1-6 over 3 years revealed rapid growth of oral competence in the first three years of acquisition, followed by a much slower annual rate of progress. Lexical and syntactic structures most difficult to acquire emerge in five distinct patterns. (50 references) (Author/MSE)

"One size fits all" literacy instruction works against the success of limited and non-English speaking students. Process instruction, tailoring literacy education to account for students' linguistic and cultural diversity, must begin with the premise that each learner brings a valid language and culture to the instructional context.…

Reports on a series of recent research projects concerning the principles of additive and subtractive bilingualism in Canadian schools and the probability of minorities and majorities successfully learning a second language based on their overall mastery in their first language. (60 references) (GLR)

Reports a study of the learning strategies and processes of four adult learners of Chinese, using data collected over a two-year period. Students showed a number of different approaches to learning, not all of which could be classified "good language learner" strategies. Findings suggest areas for exploration in immersion education, especially…

Describes the InterCultura Montessori School language immersion program in Oak Park, Illinois. Profiles the work of several children to illustrate important language learning strategies. Recommends that language immersion programs include: survival vocabulary skills; repetition of key grammatical forms; use of objects, pictures, and dramatization;…

Reports on a study of Grade 6 students in two French immersion classrooms who learned how to talk about chemical reactions. Results show that these students were able to improve how they "talk science" by appropriating certain characteristics of scientific discourse. (Author/VWL)

Compares immersion and non-immersion students' results on provincial Grade 3 tests in Ottawa in 1998-99. Explores the results by immersion type--according to the grade at which English literacy instruction is introduced, and the proportion of instructional time in English. Results corroborate those of large-scale evaluation studies of French…

Presents the perspectives of a Grade 6 French immersion class from Ontario on a brief exchange experience with francophone peers from Quebec and describes how this experience complemented their classroom language studies. Examined immersion students' perceptions of the operation of both social and cognitive/linguistic processes in the classroom…

This paper reports the results of a cross-lingual study on the role of comprehension monitoring in L1 (English) and L2 (French) reading proficiency. Fifty-two undergraduate students from two FSL backgrounds, French immersion (FI) and core French (CF), were given reading comprehension tests as well a monitoring task in both languages. Results…

Phonological development in first and second languages (L1 and L2 respectively) has not been extensively studied in young children who are acquiring a second language via immersion. This lack of information is unfortunate, as the number of children who are acquiring a second language in this context is growing and such children make up a part of…

A new urban legend claims, "As a result of the state dropping bilingual education, test scores in California skyrocketed." Krashen disputes this theory, pointing out that other factors offer more logical explanations of California's recent improvements in SAT-9 scores. He discusses research on the effects of California's Proposition 227,…

Given the decline in French majors and enrollments in French junior year study abroad programs, educators have increasingly turned to short-term study abroad for first- and second-year students. These programs can motivate students fulfilling the language requirement, while also internationalizing the curriculum through interdisciplinary and…

This article presents an autoethnographical account of my foray into Spanish immersion education in Costa Rica as a professor of multilingual education at a university in Canada. This language-learning journey was inspired by curiosity about the growing trend for Internet marketing of second-language learning as a form of tourism, which I label…