Localizing immersion education: A case study of an international bilingual education program in south China

ABSTRACT

Due to the growing status of English as the language of international communication, English immersion programs have been on the rise in China and the rest of the world. Though there has been much discussion on the theoretical and practical characteristics and features of immersion, current models are not adequate for explaining the language-driven English immersion programs in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context such as China. Drawing on interviews, observations and documentary data and test scores gathered during a longitudinal study of a public-funded foreign languages school in China, this paper reports on a Sino-Canadian collaborative educational program and concludes that in addition to exhibiting most of the core features of immersion programs suggested by Swain and Johnson (1997), the program revealed several noteworthy emerging characteristics. The study argues for the importance of re-contextualizing Swain and Johnson’s model of immersion to address the local social, cultural and educational contexts as more and more schools are adopting this model of language-driven bilingual education in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Immersion
• bilingual education
• English-Chinese bilingual education
• China

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to Mr Huailin Ping, Ms Aihua Zhang and others who have provided assistance in the course of the study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Tao Xiong is Associate Professor and Vice Dean of School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. He researches in bilingual education, English language education policy and curriculum discourses, and teacher education.

Dr Anwei Feng is Professor of Languages in Education at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC). He teaches, supervises, researches and publishes in areas including bilingualism and bilingual education, intercultural and international studies in education, TESOL, and language education for minority groups.

Notes

1 For the two of the nine hours per week, the Chinese teachers focus their teaching on the national curriculum and grammar points and practice in the textbooks, while the Canadian teachers have more freedom to develop and extend the topics out of the textbooks. For example, they would develop project-based lessons such as putting on dramas and appreciating poems.

2 The original plan of the international program intended for the international group to have ten hours of English taught by the Canadian teachers, including three hours of music, PE, art, or computer science. In the actual implementation of the program, these three hours were conducted by local teachers, though the Canadian teachers were encouraged to conduct lessons based on these themes or participate in the class. For example, a Canadian teacher would take part in a PE lesson taught by a local teacher, or take students to have a hands-on project in the computer room.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant (16YJC740046), and Visiting Scholar Scheme of the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.