Mandarin Chinese Dual Language Immersion Programs

Book excerpt: This book discusses multiple aspects of Chinese dual language immersion (DLI) programs, with a focus on the controversial Utah model. The first part of the book focuses on the parents, teachers, and school administrators. It looks at the perceptions of the three groups toward the Utah model, how they build a supportive DLI classroom with an emphasis on teacher–teacher and teacher–parent communication, and how the teachers position themselves in teaching through their teacher identities. The second part of the book emphasizes classroom research and explores teaching and learning strategies, corrective feedback and learner uptake and repair, translanguaging in authentic teacher–student interaction, and Chinese-character teaching. As the first DLI book to include a non-alphabetical language, Chinese, it addresses the need for more research on DLI programs of languages other than Spanish. The book will benefit not only Chinese DLI educators and administrators in the US, but will also offer some useful suggestions and thoughts to educators and administrators of similar programs worldwide.