ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 begins to lay the foundation for understanding immersion and dual language (ImDL) education by describing the four ImDL program models in detail. It establishes the goals of these programs and reviews the research-based outcomes in relationship to those goals. It also identifies three defining characteristics that all ImDL models share. Finally, the chapter discusses the similarities and differences between the four program models with respect to the student population they serve, the time of program onset, the amount of exposure to the minority language, the language of initial literacy instruction, and whether the program is single track (whole-school model) or dual track (a strand within an English-medium school).
