While diversity is obviously high in the general population of the state, it is even more marked in California's schools. Based on 1999-2000 enrollments, Hispanic students make up 42.2 percent of the population, while whites comprise only 36.9, Asian and Pacific Islander make up eleven percent, African Americans with 8.6 percent, and American Indians nine percent ("Education 2002"). As a result of this diversity, there is also a continuing diversity in the languages spoken, making it harder for schools to teach in one common language ("Education 2002").
Language diversity in California's school system is one of the most difficult problems to decipher ("Education 2002"). In California's 1999 Language Census, 1.48 million students were identified as English learners, meaning that they have limited-English proficiency. These students make up more than forty-one percent of all English learners in the United States ("Education" 2002). Due to this wide range of language diversity, California schoolteachers find it harder and harder to teach their children in a common language. While there exists a wide range of students speaking languages other than English, a majority of those speakers have a native Spanish-speaking tongue. As a result, school districts throughout the state are struggling with the complexities of teaching the students to comprehend reading, speaking, and writing in the English language ("Education" 2002).
Most children generally begin attending school in kindergarten, or the first grade. Therefore, they have had several years of experience in development of their native language, since they have had interaction with other children and adults since birth in the language. As a result, the children have acquired some type of proficiency in the language equivalent to that of children their age speaking the same language(Fitzgerald 1993).While it would be easy for teachers if these children all had that proficiency in the same language, the world is not a utopian society, causing teachers a wide range of problems when relating to the students through the English language. Thus, as a necessity, different methods are being developed throughout the state to aid in teaching these children to be able to not only comprehend, but also interact with others in English ("Education 2002)..
Although there are several methods that prove effective in teaching English as a second language in California, one proves to be exceptionally above the rest; English immersion (McCargo & Christian,1998) . With the current increase in the number of immersion programs throughout the United States in the past twenty years, from thirty programs in 1987 to 225 programs in 1998 (McCargo & Christian, 1998), the popularity of this type of program continues to grow. With it's growth in popularity, English immersion continues to successfully prepare students to live, as well as thrive in an English speaking environment.
What Is English Immersion?
To completely understand why this program is so successful, it is important to understand what an English immersion program entails. A popular education website, www.greatschools.net, defines immersion as "A program that places students in an environment which the language of instruction is not their primary language." In English immersion programs, the students are placed into an all-English speaking class. This means that there is no use of the native tongue (Fitzgerald 1993). Therefore, all subject matter-reading, writing, math, science, social studies, etc.- is taught only in English. As a result, the same website states that,the students are forced to not only hear the language but also to learn to interact with other students and teachers in English also.
History of English Immersion
Academic instruction in a language other than the native language dates back several centuries. Mackey, of Georgetown University, claims that such a method for teaching both academic content and a second language could go back as far as 3000 B.C. (1978). For instance, The Greeks and the Romans often utilized a second language as a major medium of instruction. In addition to the Greeks and Romans, Latin was exercised by The English and French as a language of the scholars up until the 16th century. In the United States, the establishment of German-English schools began in the mid-1800s (1978). However, it was not until the 1960s that the idea of majority-language students learning by means of a minority language was first brought to use (1978). This was first introduced in Canada with the beginning of a French immersion school in Quebec (Genessee 1987; Bernhardt 1992)..
"In the United States, The Canadian experiment was first replicated in Culver City, California, in 1997 in Spanish. This 'early total immersion program' for native speakers provides all curricular instruction in kindergarten and grade 1 in Spanish. English language arts are introduced in grade 2,and instruction through English is expanded progressively until class time conducted in Spanish nd English is nearly equal by the end of elementary school" (Genessee 1987; Bernhardt 1992).
While this is the exact opposite of most immersion programs being conducted in California today, the idea still remains the same.