History of immersion in South Tyrol

What is immersion?

Immersion means using a foreign (or second) language when studying other subjects at school. Immersion is based on the vehicular use of the language.

Where is it being used?

Immersion was first implemented in Canada in the sixties, after parents had put pressure on Education authorities. Their English speaking children were not reaching a satisfactory command of French in francophone Quebec.

A well working model of total immersion was developed. It has been exported to some areas of Europe: the Catalan and the Basque regions and some parts of Finland, which have a Swedish minority.

How does it work?

From the age of four children, use the foreign language at the kindergarten. The mother tongue is progressively added to and by the end of primary school 50% of the lessons are held in the second language and 50% in the students' mother tongue. An astonishing command of both languages is reached by the end of primary school and most students are bilingual.

There are other models of immersion, though.

Immersion models in South Tyrol

The South Tyrolean model represents a rather weaker and more cautious form of immersion. It is only implemented in a limited number of subjects (geography and history) and for a limited amount of periods. Immersion starts at a rather later age: in some schools in third form, in some others in sixth form.

A limited two-hour immersion at kindergarten level is planned for the coming academic year.

Immersion was tentatively introduced in the Italian "scuola media" (sixth to eight grade) "Archimede" in Bolzano three years ago. The teacher of German as a second language started teaching geography in German.

So far teachers and parents have noted a considerable and encouraging improvement in the command of German. And what is even more significant: the rather negative attitude of students towards German has changed and interest has grown.

Similar results were obtained in the "scuola elementare" (primary school) "Manzoni" in Bolzano,where the teacher of German has become part of the team of three, that shares responsibility and teaching in primary school classes in Italy. Thus German has become a fully legitimized subject, that is used in some subjects and activities and has the same status in the eyes of the children as Italian has. Results have been monitored by experts and compared to those obtained in "normal" classes. Both acceptance and command of the language AND of the subject taught in German have proven to be superior in immersion classes. Therefore it is not true, as it is often said by critics, that contents are sacrificed for language command; on the contrary, contents are promoted by the additional motivation given by the unusual language.

The most significant immersion model is being tried out by a private school in Bolzano. The "Marcelline" model starting from grade one has the same amount of lesson time in Italian and in German: 12 periods in German, 12 in Italian, plus a few in English. At the same time the "Marcelline" have introduced a partial model in grades six through eight with history and geography in German.

Hostility and pressure

The role of parents has been vital in promoting these experiences. They have cooperated with staff and experts and have founded the Association of Parents for Bilingual Education as a pressure group, which aims at promoting and encouraging immersion language-learning. Hostility from local authorities has grown considerably in the course of 1996.

Though all experimental models have been approved by the local government in the past, it is now becoming clear, that neither a long term continuation nor an extension of immersion to other schools will be accepted.

Last spring a committee of six was nominated by the local government to work out a proposal for improving language learning.

In April and May 1996 over 10.000 citizens signed a petition promoted by the Association asking for positive actions in view of promoting bilingualism and understanding. The petition asks for a law, that explicitly states that it is possible to implement language immersion on a voluntary basis in state schools. This would not be contrasting with article 19 of the Statute of Autonomy of South Tyrol, but would give an interpretation of it.

In June Luis Durnwalder, head of the local government (Presidente della Giunta Provinciale/ Landeshauptmann), has expressed the view, that Italian schools should be permitted to have "German classes", i.e. classes with Italian students taught in German by German teachers. This reflects a personal, though autoritative, opinion and is being hotly debated at present.