Within bilingual education, more and more programs are adopting the option of immersion education, in which a second language is used as the medium of instruction. This volume seeks to illustrate the implementation and practice of immersion education in programs in North America, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and Africa, showing the many different situations in which it can be used and the various purposes it can serve. An introductory chapter differentiates immersion education from other types of bilingual education and categorizes its varied uses.
Thirteen case studies illustrate immersion education in programs ranging from preprimary to tertiary level, demonstrating how it can function in foreign languages teaching, for teaching a minority language to members of the language majority, for reviving or supporting languages at risk, and for helping learners acquire a language needed for wider communication or career advancement. A final section reviews lessons from experiences with immersion in North America and explores some of the new directions this approach is taking. This text will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators, and applied linguists involved in second and foreign language education as well as bilingual education.