Immersion

Swim better—and enjoy every lap—with Total Immersion, a guide to improving your swimming from an expert with more than thirty years of experience in the water. Terry Laughlin, the world’s #1 authority on swimming success, has made his unique approach even easier for anyone to master. Whether you’re an accomplished swimmer or have always found swimming to be a struggle, Total Immersion will show you that it’s mindful fluid movement—not athletic ability—that will turn you into an efficient swimmer. This new edition of the bestselling Total Immersion features: -A thoughtfully choreographed series of skill drills—practiced in the mindful spirit of yoga—that can help anyone swim more enjoyably -A holistic approach to becoming one with the water and to developing a swimming style that’s always comfortable -Simple but thorough guidance on how to improve fitness and form -A complementary land-and-water program for achieving a strong and supple body at any age Based on more than thirty years of teaching, coaching, and research, Total Immersion has dramatically improved the physical and mental experience of swimming for thousands of people of all ages and abilities.

This book describes the experiences of a group of students in Chicago, Illinois, who are attending one of the first Spanish-English dual immersion schools in the United States. The author follows the group during two school years, documenting their Spanish use and proficiency, as well as how their two languages intersect with the ongoing production of their identities.

"This book presents a unique collection of research studies on French Immersion conducted from the authors' base as a research team in British Columbia, Canada. It serves as an important resource for educators and policymakers interested in the impact of immersion on educational policy, student outcomes, second language curriculum, and teacher education." "Section I documents the authors' experiences in developing a systematic approach to evaluation and assessment of French immersion programs. Section II includes studies on important curricular and instructional considerations for immersion education, and Section III addresses teacher education and professional development, including in-depth case studies of immersion teacher education programs and immersion teachers' perspectives on their role and needs for support and improvement. A final chapter contains concluding comments and future directions for immersion programs." "Immersion has grown significantly not only in Canada but also worldwide. This collection of research studies will be informative to those involved in intensive second language education internationally."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This volume chronicles a project that involved the staff and principals in the midwestern United States, in collaboration with a team of educational researchers. Included as chapters are qualitative studies of immersion teachers, analyses of the use of drama and children's literature, and discussions of staff preparation and maintenance for immersion schooling.

This volume showcases the practice and promise of immersion education through in-depth investigations of program design, implementation practices, and policies in one-way, two-way and indigenous immersion programs. Contributors present new research and reflect on possibilities for strengthening practices and policies in immersion education to increase programmatic impact and promote higher levels of language proficiency and literacy among learners.

Worldwide, more parents are opting for immersion pre-schooling for their children in order to benefit from its linguistic, educational, and cultural benefits. This immersion can be either bilingual or monolingual, aimed at early second language learning, or at language maintenance – offering minority language children mother-tongue support and enrichment. This book examines some of the key issues and policy concerns relating to immersion education in the early years. The term itself can be difficult in some political contexts, as can the differing outcomes noted by studies comparing monolingual programmes, and bilingual programmes for minority language children. The importance of training in immersion methodology for educators is discussed, as is the need to adapt preschool pedagogical practices to the immersion context, in order to provide optimal input for young language learners. One of the most pressing discussions surrounds differentiated provision – ensuring that the varying needs of children with language impairment, typical second language learners, and mother-tongue speakers with significant socioeconomic or linguistic disadvantages are all met. Overall, the book explores the challenges currently facing the sector, particularly with regard to training and professional development for practitioners, and the provision of appropriate materials in less widely used languages. Given the documented benefit of high quality immersion pre-schooling, this book fulfils an urgent need to increase the recognition of the sector. This book was published as a special issue of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

The body of research in this volume offers a detailed account of the success of young immersion learners of Irish in becoming competent speakers of the minority language. Taking account of in-class and out-of-class factors, it examines the variety of Irish spoken by the pupils, the extent to which the Irish spoken deviates from native-speaker norms, the degree to which pupils are aware of and attempt to acquire a native-like variety and the extent to which issues of identity and motivation are involved. The results highlight the limitations of an immersion system in generating active and accurate users of the language outside the immersion setting and will help immersion educators to gain a greater understanding of how young immersion learners learn and acquire the target language. The findings are placed in the context of other one-way immersion programmes internationally with a particular focus on minority language settings, and make an important contribution not only to our understanding of the Irish issues, but how the Irish situation can be placed in a broader scholarly and socio-political context.

This book examines the University of Dayton Cameroon Immersion program, with comparative evidence from the Peace Corps. It analyzes different aspects of experiential learning, contextualizes them within the broader issues of modern American and African history, and offers important conclusions for an understanding of the benefits of study abroad.