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ImmersionOne of the most famous approaches to bilingualism has been the immersion approach taken in Canada where children from the majority English speakers are sent to a French-speaking school. In these programmes, all the lessons are taught in French, as if the children were monolingual French children. Programmes vary in their adherence to the strictness of the approach, with some being more bilingual, in that some teachers speak English. Some adopt a principle of territories - in this zone of the school all communication should be in English or in French. In some cases the school administrators may be English users while the teachers all use French. The impression may be given that all the teachers are monolingual French speakers. The results of achievement in these programmes is very favourable to language development. In Immersion programmes especially where the immersion begins very early, the children are as good in English as their English controls. Only in the very first stages is there a difference. In late immersion programmes there is no setback in English as was sometimes supposed. When immersion programs were first introduced into the public school system, there was considerable concern among parents and educators alike that students would have difficulty assimilating academic material if it were taught through a second language. These concerns were fuelled by the results of earlier research on the academic and linguistic development of bilingual children. For the most part, this research has reported that bilingual children experience linguistic and academic deficits when compared with monolinguals. As Cummins(1981) has pointed out, however, many of these studies were carried out in "subtractive bilingual" settings; that is in settings, which required the individuals to learn a second language because the language of the school was different from the language of the home. Genessee, 1987, p. 40 The implication here is that bilingualism can be achieved in immersion situations for majority children ie hearing children could be educated in sign and in this way achieve bilingual competence. We have some way to go before we can see hearing children attending a Deaf school but the fact is that it would not damage their education and would probably enhance their linguistic knowledge. These are important issues and have to be discussed further. |
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