What Is Two-Way Immersion Education?

One of the most interesting innovations to emerge in second language education in the last 30 years is immersion education. During the last decade there has been a shift away from teaching language in isolation from academic content; that is, teaching a “foreign language” as a separate class unto itself. Instead, research shows the most effective way for children to acquire a second language is to integrate instruction into the standard curriculum children are already learning. Language is used as the medium to learn the curriculum that children are required to know. What this means to us is that depending on the grade level your child is in, parts of the Cupertino Union School District’s and the California State Educational curriculum will be delivered in Mandarin (e.g., social studies, science, music, and language arts; subjects that are language “rich”). At different times social studies, science, mathematics, music, and language arts curriculum are delivered in English.