F A Q

At what grade level is it best to begin a Dual Language Immersion Program?
In the United States, most programs begin in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, or Grade 1.

What eventual effect do Dual Language Immersion Programs have on verbal and mathematical skills in English?
Studies (Holobow et al., 1987; Swain & Lapkin, 1991) have consistently shown that immersion students do as well as, and may even surpass, comparable non-immersion students on measures of verbal and mathematics skills.

What are the goals of a Dual Language Immersion Program?
The long-range goals of an immersion program include: 1) developing a high level of proficiency in the foreign language; 2) developing positive attitudes toward those who speak the foreign language and toward their culture(s); 3) developing English language skills commensurate with expectations for student's age and abilities; 4) gaining skills and knowledge in the content areas of the curriculum in keeping with stated objectives in these areas.

What is a Dual Language Immersion Program?
• Dual Language Immersion Program is a type of dual language education in which language minority and language majority students are integrated, and both English and the native language of the language minority students are used for instruction.
• The structure of programs varies, but they all provide instruction in the non-English language for a significant portion of the school day and integrate language majority (English) and language minority (German) students for all instruction.
• The unique feature of this type of dual language instruction is that within each program, there is a balance of language-minority and language-majority students, with each group making up between one-third and two-thirds of the total student population.
• In this model, all students have the opportunity to be both first language models and second language learners.
• Dual Language Immersion Programs strive to promote bilingualism and biliteracy, grade-level academic achievement, and positive cross-cultural attitudes and behaviors in all students.

What are the benefits of learning two languages?

Throughout the world, knowing more than one language is the norm, not the exception. It is estimated that between half and two-thirds of the world’s population is bilingual; the majority of people live in situations where they regularly use two or more languages.

Knowing more than one language, therefore, is a skill to be valued and encouraged. Research shows that continuing to develop your child’s native language or developing a second language doe not interfere with the acquisition of English – it facilitates the process.

The child who knows more than one language has personal, social, cognitive, and economic advantages which will continue throughout his/her live.
Additionally, research shows that knowing more than one language increases a person’s thinking abilities. Bilingual children have greater mental flexibility and use those skills to their advantage in figuring out math concepts as well as solving word problems.

Educational: Students, who learn English and continue to develop their native language, do better at school, and learn English better, than students who learn English at the expense of their first language.

Personal: A child’s first language is critical to his or her identity. Continuing to develop this language helps a child value his or her culture and heritage, contributing to a positive self-concept.

Economic: The demand for bilingual employees throughout the world is increasing. The ability to speak, read, and write two or more languages is a great advantage in the job market.

Skills and concepts acquired in the first language transfer to the second language. Once a child learns to read in one language, s/he can transfer that knowledge of how to make sense of a printed page to another language. Students do not need to re-learn how to read English. Similarly, concepts learned in one language easily transfer to another. The child only has to learn that 2x3=6 once; when transferring to the second language only the English vocabulary needs to be learned, the concepts are already firmly in place.