Portland Oregon Schools
Spanish and Mandarin Immersion programs from elementary through high school
Like in Minnetonka, Portland has an impressive history of providing a successful, long-term immersion program to students and the programs now include students from elementary through high school.
Milwaukee Spanish Immersion School
The Milwaukee Spanish Immersion School community is committed to maximizing students’ academic and social potential with an emphasis on cultures from the Spanish speaking world. In our immersion program, students are educated in both Spanish and English while being held to high academic standards. MSIS staff, in partnership with parents, fosters success by the use of formative assessments, collaborative reflection and goal setting.
Robbinsdale Spanish Immersion School
Students at the Robbinsdale Spanish Immersion School learn Spanish while they learn math, science, music and more. Students benefit from developing cognitive skills early on.
Adams Spanish Immersion Magnet
Being bilingual nourishes the child who will nourish the world! Adams Spanish Immersion is an elementary school that provides children with an opportunity to be fluent in a second language. Adams' students are surrounded by Spanish all day long and learn to speak and comprehend the language much as a child learns to speak for the first time. Our School is a place where families and staff value the importance of language and the opportunities that are gained by learning another language. It is a magical place where dedicated staff and involved parents nurture young minds and hearts.
Berkeley Elementary School Immersion Programs
This is a site for parents to ask and other parents to answer, questions about the Berkeley Elementary Spanish Immersion School. This is two-way immersion school, whereas ours (Denver Language School) will be full immersion, but the principles are the same.
Rockford Spanish Immersion Program
Learning a language before adolescence takes advantage of a very important ‘window of opportunity’ by building early language connections in the brain. Learning a language early also provides your child with time and opportunity to develop a high level of proficiency in Spanish and sound more like a native speaker. Immersion students acquire an understanding, knowledge and appreciation toward those who speak other languages and their cultures by learning in a multicultural setting.
Theodore Potter Spanish Immersion School 74
Emphasis on core values, cultural diversity, and academic rigor provide a firm foundation for a student’s academic future. The Theodore Potter Spanish Immersion Magnet is a cultural jewel in the heart of Indianapolis offering kindergarten to sixth grade students the unique opportunity to acquire a second language. Research proves that learning a second language at an early age has a positive effect on intellectual growth and enhances a child’s mental development. Highly qualified English and Spanish teachers utilize proven strategies in delivering an exciting academic experience. Students are not only held to the same high standards as all other elementary students, but also participation in the immersion program comes with the expectation that all students will learn to read, write, solve problems, communicate, and process information naturally in two languages. Native Spanish-speaking teachers provide a challenging nontraditional method of learning mathematics and science using only their native language. English-speaking teachers deliver reading, language arts and social studies instruction in a more traditional setting. Language immersion along with the latest teaching techniques and technology enriches and enhances each student’s learning experience and prepares them to become successful global citizens.
Marguerite Montgomery Elementary School
For 25 years the Davis public school system has offered an alternative education program where Spanish is used to teach the District's elementary school curriculum. Currently, the main campus
for Spanish Immersion (SI) is at César Chávez Elementary. Marguerite Montgomery Elementary (MME) serves as a satellite program with one
Spanish Immersion class in kindergarten, first, second and third grades.
Spanish Immersion Parents Association of Palo Alto
The PAUSD Board of Education approved the Spanish Immersion Program in Spring of 1995. In order to help build a quality program, the parents of the first kindergarten class founded SIPAPA, the Spanish Immersion Parents Association of Palo Alto, to actively provide support and contribute to the success of the immersion program.
Parents are encouraged, but are not obliged, to help with the support of the class and program through many avenues: volunteering in the classroom, participating in and contributing to whole school activities, planning cultural events, contributing financial support, working on fundraisers, creating a newsletter, working on outreach programs, and other projects.
Experience has shown that parent involvement is an important aspect of successful immersion programs. SIPAPA meets regularly and works toward the goal of a quality immersion program.
American Council on Immersion Education, newsletter archive
(with a special section for parents):
http://www.carla.umn.edu/immersion/acie/index.html
According to wiki
Language immersion is a method of teaching a second language
(also called L2, or the target language). Unlike a more traditional language course, where the target language is simply the subject material, language immersion uses the target language as a teaching tool, surrounding or "immersing" students in the second language. In-class activities, such as math, social studies, and history, and those outside of the class, such as meals or everyday tasks, are conducted in the target language. Today's immersion programs are based on those founded in the 1960s in Canada when middle-income English-speaking parents convinced educators to establish an experimental French immersion program enabling their children 'to appreciate the traditions and culture of French-speaking Canadians as well as English-speaking Canadians'.[1]
In the United States, and since the 1980s, dual immersion programs have grown for a number of reasons: competition in a global economy, a growing population of second language learners, and the successes of previous programs [2]. Language immersion classes can now be found throughout the US, in urban and suburban areas, in dual-immersion and single language immersion, and in an array of languages. As of May 2005, there were 317 dual immersion programs in US elementary schools, providing instruction in 10 languages, and 96% of programs were in Spanish [3] Educators distinguish between language immersion and submersion programs. In the former, the class is composed of students learning the L2 at the same level; while in the latter, one or two students are learning the foreign language, which is the first language (L1) for the rest of the class, thus they are "thrown into the ocean to learn how to swim" instead of gradually immersed in the new language. A new form of language related syllabus delivery called Internationalised Curriculum provides a different angle by immersing the curricula from various countries into the local language curriculum and separating out the language-learning aspects of the syllabus. Proponents believe immersion study in a language foreign to the country of instruction doesn't produce as effective results as separated language learning and may, in fact, hinder education effectiveness and learning in other subject areas.
Research in support of elementary foreign language learning, from the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Language
An annotated bibliography on the benefits of and research of immersion programs
The Center for Applied Linguistics
Provides information on immersion schools throughout the US (and on two-way immersion programs), research, manuals and professional development, all focused on foreign language acquisition.