This presentation describes an innovative language immersion program in Canada’s largest bilingual (French-English) university (Knoerr & Weinberg, 2020). The immersion program at the University of Ottawa was implemented 20 years ago to promote the continued learning of French beyond high school, and applies the pedagogical principles of content-based language instruction or ‘CLIL’ (Dalton-Puffer et al., 2014; Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 2003), or what is better known in Canada as "immersion” (Burger, Wesche, & Migneron, 1997). An approach that teaches language across disciplinary subjects within the nation’s capital helps to not only realize a political ideal (Séror & Weinberg, 2021), but also meets the needs of an increasingly diverse domestic and international student population pursuing academic goals not only through French, but also English. A case study approach (Duff, 2020) is used to present an in-depth description of content and language integration, linguistically and culturally responsive instruction (Gallager & Haan, 2022), as well as academic biliteracy (Hornberger, 2022) development in adjunct language courses connected to a discipline course. Research findings on the French and English immersion program will be shared examining the impact of the program on student academic performance as well as student engagement (Kuh, 2008; Groccia, 2018). Quantitative data from student grade averages and questionnaires, as well as qualitative data from student interviews, pedagogical documentation, and practitioner reflections will be presented. Despite institutional challenges, the impact of the immersion approach is positive overall, and the program shows promise for supporting bi/multilingualism and intercultural understanding in a global educational context.

Authors:
Vasiliki Spiliotopoulos, University of Ottawa, Canada
Jérémie Séror, University of Ottawa, Canada

About the Presenter(s)
Valia Spiliotopoulos is an Associate Professor with the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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