View Content #21812

By Julie Sykes, CASLS Director

For two decades, Portland Public Schools (PPS) (Portland, Oregon) has offered a Mandarin Dual Language Immersion Program with preschool and kindergarten entry points. In the last decade, PPS has partnered with the University of Oregon to build a well-articulated K–16 Mandarin immersion and world language program.

Our ethnographic study, funded by The Language Flagship, examines the historical development of the PPS program, sets forth key components of the PPS model that other districts may replicate, and examines catalysts and disruptors to the language immersion model.

Research identified twelve essential elements for an immersion program.

1. Foster community support through clear, consistent communication with parents
2. Facilitate communication among parents and teachers, specifically addressing differences in language, culture, and socioeconomic status
3. Garner district support for staffing, curriculum, enrollment, student management, and financial investments
4. Create unity between the immersion and neighborhood programs housed within the same school
5. Develop institutional partnerships to create places for students to continue their learning as they progress from elementary to middle to high school and beyond
6. Maintain high elementary enrollments that can sustain attrition and retain viable student numbers for middle and high school programs
7. Maintain middle school and high school student interest and motivation in language study through innovation and opportunity
8. Employ backwards design to first identify program goals and then establish practices to accomplish those goals
9. Hire committed administrative staff whose tasks pertain solely to the immersion program
10. Provide qualified teachers with ongoing professional development through professional learning communities that work toward aligning curriculum horizontally across disciplines and vertically across grade levels
11. Track student outcomes with standardized assessments and use assessment data to drive curriculum changes
12. Consistently acquire curriculum resources in the target language

The Executive Summary and complete study can be found at: https://casls.uoregon.edu/research/chinese-immersion-research/