Paper Session: Adminstering a Successful Language Immersion Program: A Case Study
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Great River Ballroom I 
Philippe Dietz, International School of the Peninsula

With almost 30 years of experience, the International School of the Peninsula is one of the top independent language immersion schools. Unique in its offering of two different language immersion programs, ISTP’s case study will provide best practices involved in administering a successful program.

Session Handouts (in PDF): PowerPoint               

Paper Session: Challenges in New Textbook Adoption in an Immersion Setting
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Kellogg II 
Tamayo Hattori, John Stanford Int'l School
Hiromi Pingry, John Stanford Int'l School

This presentation sheds light on the difficult task of maintaining and strengthening immersion programs when experiencing a new curriculum adoption. Immersion teachers from the Seattle Public Schools share how they coped with the challenge, including their communication with colleagues and administrators. Effective math teaching practices will be discussed in their presentation.

Session Handouts (in PDF): PowerPoint               

Paper Session: English and Spanish “Para un Futuro?” Families Consider Two-Way Immersion
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Windows on the River 
Lisa Dorner, University of Missouri

Taking an interpretive approach to policy analysis, this presentation examines children’s and parents’ perspectives on one district's new two-way immersion policy. The discussion will consider how these perspectives are a microcosm of the larger, public debate over immigration and whether our nation will encourage development of its multicultural and multilingual heritage or instead press for assimilation and the dominance of English.

Session Handouts (in PDF): PowerPoint               

Paper Session: Generation Connection
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Great River Ballroom IV 
France Trepanier, Myrtle Place Elementary

The presenter, a graduate of McGill University in Elementary Immersion Education and a French Immersion teacher, will describe how her second graders are paired with residents of a nursing home. Their five yearly visits are based on different purposes and themes. These activities integrate Social Studies, Sciences and French Language Arts. The Powerpoint Presentation will be in French but the discussion will be in English.

Session Handouts (in PDF): Generation Connection PowerPoint               

Symposium: Immersion Student Language Use Across Program Contexts
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Great River Ballroom II & III 
Tara Fortune, CARLA - University of Minnesota
Maggie Broner, St. Olaf College
Mandy Menke, Spanish and Portuguese, University of Minnesota
Elaine Tarone, CARLA - University of Minnesota
Diane Tedick, University of Minnesota

Tarone and Swain (1995) called for systematic, classroom-based research of immersion students’ naturally occurring language practices. The research presented here examines the language use of 5th graders across three U.S. language immersion contexts. Together these data highlight factors that influence which language immersion students use and for what purposes.

Discussion Session: Immersion Teachers' Language of Professional Exposure and Their Evolving Identity
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Kellogg III 
Peter-J. Heffernan, Faculty of Education, U of Lethbridge

Language of publication and of referential discourse in professional literature targeting immersion educators is a matter of concern for immersion teachers with respect to their evolving specialist identity. The researcher shares his findings derived from a study analyzing nearly two decades of language-of-publication practice in a representative sample of pertinent professional reviews. He also raises a number of questions while heightening our collective consciousness regarding what his findings reveal, which he suggests are startling, anomolous and counter-intuitive.

Paper Session: L'Etoile du Nord Arts Partnership: Understanding Culture and Identity through Family Artifacts
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Governors II 
Dr. Fatima Lawson, L'Etoile du Nord French Immersion School
Christi Schmitt, L'Etoile du Nord French Immersion School

L'Etoile du Nord French Immersion School and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts developed an artist residency focused on "Family Artifacts." These French/English bilingual books celebrate and tell a story about the students' family beliefs, culture, and values. L'Etoile du Nord Arts Partnership discovered that the books not only represented a student's family culture and traditions, but also the unique fabric of our school family.

Symposium: Policy and Barriers and Opportunities to Indigenous Language Immersion Programs
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Governors III 
Margaret Boyer, Wicoie Nandagikendan Urban Immersion Project
Jennifer Bendickson, Wicoie Nandagikendan Urban Immersion Project

This presentation will combine PowerPoint and group discussion to present the Indigenous Immersion Strategy developed by the Wicoie Nandagikendan Dakota & Ojibwe Urban Immersion Project. This will include Wicoie Nandagikendan’s work on the evaluation process, policy barriers to Indigenous language programs, and funding strategies.

Paper Session: Reconstructing Literacy Assessments – Ten Years On: What Have We Learned?
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Capitol 
Cath Rau, Kia Ata Mai Educational Trust

Reconstructing a literacy assessment developed in one language for use in instructional programmes delivered in another offers possibilities for threatened minority languages struggling to develop procedures to inform early literacy teaching and learning. This presentation describes one such example from Aotearoa/New Zealand for Maori immersion settings.

Symposium: Tailoring Language Support to University Content Courses
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Governors IV 
Catherine Buchanan, University of Ottawa
Marie-Claude Dansereau, University of Ottawa
Carla Hall, University of Ottawa

The University of Ottawa’s tertiary-level immersion program in ESL and FSL poses unique pedagogical challenges. Teachers must tailor instruction in the adjunct language course to the language demands specific to the university content course their students attend. This symposium profiles models and examples of how teachers meet this challenge.

Paper Session: Using Drama in the Immersion Classroom
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 am, Room: Kellogg I 
Jo Sanders, Rilke Schule - German School of Arts and Sciences

Using skits and plays in the classroom can encourage students to speak freely under the guise of playing a role, build their vocabulary, increase self-confidence and enrich their knowledge of legends and stories of the language they are learning. It is also fun!