2008 Immersion Education Conference
Immersion Education:
Pathways to Bilingualism & Beyond
2008 International Conference on Immersion Education
October 16–18, 2008Crowne Plaza Riverfront Hotel Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
Language immersion education has emerged as a uniquely constituted, highly effective program model for launching students on the road to bilingualism, multilingualism and intercultural competence. School-based immersion programs follow a variety of paths, including one-way foreign language immersion, two-way bilingual immersion, and indigenous immersion for language and culture revitalization. While each pathway targets distinct socio-cultural contexts and educational needs, all are grounded in a set of core characteristics with a strong focus on subject matter learning as well as language development.
Under the leadership of two national centers in the U.S., CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota) and CAL (Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C.), this third international conference on immersion education brings these pathways together to engage in meaningful dialogue and professional exchange across languages, levels, learner audiences, program models and sociopolitical contexts.
Featured Plenary Presentations & Speakers
Keynote Address
Immersion Education: Intercultural Competence
for Tomorrow’s Global Citizens
Myriam Met
Senior Research Associate
National Foreign Language Center
University of Maryland
Plenary Speakers
Learning to Read in a Second Language
Fred Genesee
Professor of Psychology
McGill University; Montreal, Quebec
Immersion in Hong Kong and Mainland China
Philip Hoare
Associate Professor
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Integrating Identity and Culture in Hawaiian Immersion
Kauanoe Kamana
Associate Professor, Hawaiian Medium Curriculum
William H. “Pila� Wilson
Professor and Chair, Hawaiian Studies Division
University of Hawai‘i at Hilo
Counterbalancing Form-Focused and
Content-Based Instruction in Immersion Pedagogy
Roy Lyster
Associate Professor of Second Language Education McGill University; Montreal, Quebec
This unique event offers over 90 paper sessions, discussion sessions and symposia that address the four main conference themes: Immersion Pedagogy, Culture and Identity, Policy and Advocacy and Program Design and Evaluation. See the online conference schedule at: http://www.carla.umn.edu/conferences/immersion2008/schedule.html