Article: Immersion Teaching: Successful Approaches

From http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2013/10/immersion_teaching_successful_approaches.html

Immersion Teaching: Successful Approaches
by Chris Livaccari
October 17, 2013

Immersion teachers must first clearly understand what content must be taught at each grade level. They need to be familiar with "comprehensible input," which emphasizes that students should be exposed to new words and patterns in contexts that facilitate comprehension and assimilation. Teachers should consistently weave together familiar language with new words and information, so that students continually develop their language proficiency. In this way, language acquisition in an immersion program closely mimics the natural learning curve for a first language, in which a child is constantly prompted to assimilate new language and meaning from unfamiliar words and expressions. Immersion also includes more elements of discovery- and inquiry-based learning than do other kinds of instructional practices. Students must constantly and consistently decipher inferences and context clues.

Read on for the author’s top five immersion teaching skills: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2013/10/immersion_teaching_successful_approaches.html