This book challenges the popular assumption that scholarly research is generally inaccessible to the lay reader. Evaluating Bilingual Education: A Canadian Case Study was written as a synthesis and overview of a number of evaluations of French immersion programs in Canada. It is a non-technical yet thorough description of Canadian research in this area, intended not only for researchers, but also for parents, educators and policy makers. Details are provided on the salient features of immersion programs in Canada, the instructional approach used, and the academic, linguistic, social and psychologucal outcomes associated with these programs. This in-depth description of one approach to bilingual education - immersion - permits the reader to determine its relevance to his/her own particular socio-political context and educational setting.

Author Biography

Merrill Swain is Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. She has researched and published extensively in the fields of second language learning, teaching and testing. Her recent interests include immersion education, languaging and the inseparability of cognition and emotion. She was President of AAAL and Vice President of AILA. She received the Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award of AAAL (2004) and received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Vaasa in Finland in 2011. Sharon Lapkin is Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her research has centred on French second language education in studies ranging from large-scale program evaluations to qualitative studies of language learning in progress. She served for close to ten years as co-editor of the Canadian Modern Language Review and is currently a Director of Canadian Parents for French, a not-for-profit promoting opportunities for Canadian youth to learn and use French.