Thank you to all presenters and participants, and to the conference sponsors, for making the 8th International Immersion 2022 a great success!

Policies, legislation and public opinion impact immersion and dual language education. As a result, there is an ongoing need to identify, educate, and engage stakeholders. This strand addresses both theoretical and practical aspects of advocacy including important questions regarding:

• Language policy and implementation
• Legislative mandates
• Advocacy initiatives
• Strategies for expanding support for immersion and dual language education
• Grassroots approaches

Critical Questions:

1. How do policies, legislation, and public opinion impact immersion and dual language education?
2. What are effective ways to identify, educate, and engage stakeholders?
3. How can stakeholders initiate advocacy efforts?
4. What strategies can stakeholders use to create, implement, and sustain effective programs, practices and policies?
5. How do policies and practices limit or expand participation in immersion and dual language programs?
6. How can policy makers and program stakeholders facilitate recruitment, licensure, and hiring practices?

This strand focuses on the important goals of culture, identity and communities in dual language/immersion in building relationships through and across cultural diversity. Proposals may include critical approaches at the classroom, school, district, and/or community levels. Within this strand, topics to be addressed include: 

• Exploring how teacher, student, parent identities are constructed in dual language/immersion contexts
• Developing and understanding biculturalism and/or multicultural competencies
• Engaging in research and practice to help the field better understand and embrace diversity in our increasingly interconnected world
• Using research to examine our understanding and practice of culture, our identities, and engaged communities

Critical Questions:

1. What are stakeholders’ (e.g., teachers, students, parents) perceptions of self and other? How are perceptions of identity transmitted or transformed through dual language/immersion?
2. What are some innovative approaches to engage families and communities in schooling to empower learners and improve their learning outcomes?
3. How do dual language/immersion programs define, articulate, and frame the teaching of culture? What does effective teaching of socio-cultural competence look like?
4. How is culture and identity addressed, acknowledged, and celebrated throughout the classroom, school and community?
5. How can we advocate, embrace, and mobilize the cultural assets in our communities to ensure access and opportunity for all students regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, language, socioeconomic level, or demographics (e.g., urban, suburban, rural)?

Dual language immersion is often considered an excellent approach for integrated, multilingual schooling that promotes equity and  inclusion, as well as indigenous language revitalization and heritage language maintenance. However, research and experience demonstrate that inequities exist across various areas of dual language immersion. This strand requests research and practice proposals that explore critical questions in areas like the following as they connect to equity and social justice: 

• Sociopolitical contexts, such as anti-immigrant and English-only discourses and ideologies
• State, district and school policies, including distribution of resources
• Relationship of DLI programs/strands within their school communities
• Community and family education and engagement
• Teacher recruitment, credentialing, and support
• Teachers’ orientations and backgrounds
• Inclusive curricula and pedagogies
• Access, opportunities and success for students of various racial, ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and abilities

Critical Questions:

1. Who has access to DLI? What policies support or act as barriers to access?
2. What does outreach/recruitment look like for both students and teachers? Are recruitment strategies intentional to create equity?
3. What are the issues of equity around curriculum? What is available in which languages, and whose cultural backgrounds and perspectives are represented?
4. How can DLI programs work toward implementing anti-racist pedagogies and foster inclusivity of diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and ability backgrounds? How do programs support third languages and provide access to special education students, recognizing and valuing diverse home languages and abilities?
5. How do programs and policies support multilingual students’ cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity? How do we move beyond monolingual mindsets, L1 and L2 categories, testing in English-only, and English learner classification systems?
6. In what ways do teacher preparation programs address issues of equity? Do state certification programs allow for preparation of teachers from all backgrounds and communities?
7. How do we support equity and linguistic diversity through in-service professional development for teachers and educational leaders?
8. Are state, district and school resources distributed equitably across different types/languages of DLI programs and for DLI programs in comparison to other specialized programs?
9. How do schools as a whole benefit from DLI programming, for example, in teachers’ professional development and EL support?

The professional learning of classroom teachers, program leaders, and administrators is critical to DLI program effectiveness. However, facilitating self-directed learning and sustained professional growth is often challenging due to diverse professional contexts, needs, interests, and concerns.  Sessions in this strand will engage attendees with theoretical principles and effective practices for supporting effective pre-service teacher preparation; meaningful inservice professional learning; high quality curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and transformative leadership. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Preservice teacher preparation, such as developing effective DLI preservice teacher preparation programs (policies, program structure, curriculum, assignments)
• Arranging and facilitating effective field experiences (classroom observations, practicum, student teaching, internships)
• Providing effective coaching and mentoring for preservice teachers
• Encouraging professionalism and professional engagement
• Offering post-graduation opportunities for professional learning and support

Critical Questions:

1. Preservice Teacher Preparation: How are preservice teacher preparation programs empowering DLI teachers to navigate the complexities of teaching and learning in DLI settings?
2. Inservice Teacher Learning: How do we meet the individual needs of ALL DLI teachers (including new teachers, international teachers, partner teachers, experienced teachers, and teachers new to a district or program)?
3. Classroom Practices: How are teachers using high quality curriculum, instruction, and assessment to progressively build learners’ skills in language, content, and culture? How are teachers adapting and responding to the challenges of teaching DLI programs?
4. Leadership: How do leaders build capacity and support among community leaders, school and district level administrators, and teacher leaders to develop and maintain strong DLI programs?

This strand includes theoretical and practical aspects of program design; curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and leadership and administration. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Program design, such as models (one way/two way, one or two teacher), strand/whole school, subject instruction, K-12 articulated pathways, and student population
• Assessing student language proficiency, such as use of proficiency data, self and peer assessment, and formative assessment
• Curriculum, instruction, and pedagogy, such as yield instructional practices, literacy development, and resource materials
• Meeting the needs of all students, such as interventions, and accommodations
• Program evaluation, such as assessment, teacher evaluation, and stakeholder satisfaction
• Administrator development, such as accountability for high quality instruction, data analysis and application, intra-school relations, parent/community relations, budgeting and costs, and equity
• Staffing, such as recruitment and selection criteria, licensing, retention, and ongoing support

Critical Questions:

1. What approaches contribute to successful creation and sustaining of high quality DLI programs?
2. What is the role of student performance data in teacher development, curriculum, and instruction?
3. What strategies are effective in attracting, retaining, and developing excellent teachers? What approaches address the needs of struggling learners?
4. What strategies and approaches promote integration of language, culture and content learning?
5. What approaches contribute to successful creation and sustaining of high quality DLI programs?
6. What is the role of student performance data in teacher development, curriculum, and instruction?
7. What strategies are effective in attracting, retaining, and developing excellent teachers? What approaches address the  needs of struggling learners?
8. What strategies and approaches promote integration of language, culture and content learning?