This initiative builds on a series of interrelated language immersion projects currently (see http://www.uatuahine.hawaii.edu/hana/Ittp/default.html) being carried out at the University of Hawai‘i. Organized around a three-year grant from FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education) and actualized in the living laboratory of the Hawaiian immersion experience, the Kukamaile Immersion coTeacher Training Project has as its ultimate goal the creation of a model for pre- and in-service training of language immersion teachers in foreign, heritage, and indigenous immersion programs. The project includes an annual Summer Institute component for pre- and in-service Hawaiian immersion educators, a technology-based distance education component, and a dissemination component to dispense to the national community of immersion educators a prototype to be actualized in this project. In 1998 the NFLRC Summer Institute will be coordinated with the FIPSE Kukamaile Summer Institute and will feature both a symposium and a two-week workshop. Advancing Language Immersion Education: Pacific Perspectives and International Applications will draw on the dynamic success of language immersion programs in the Pacific and unite immersion experts from East and West. Immersion educators representing all languages and instructional contexts, including foreign, heritage, and indigenous immersion programs, are encouraged to participate. The one-week Symposium July 6-10 will feature papers and panel discussions as well as concurrent hands-on sessions and interest groups discussions and will facilitate the sharing of resources, ideas, and information about all aspects of language immersion education, including such topics as:
- Empowering the learner through immersion
- Culture and community in the immersion program
- Launching an immersion program
- Indigenous/heritage language education
- Teacher training
- Technology and immersion education
- Materials development and adaptation/curriculum design
The two-week Workshop July 13-24 will examine further the themes of the Symposium with special emphasis on 4 modules: Pedagogy, Culture, Technology, and Materials Development. Through presentations, discussions, practice, and demonstrations, participants will carry out projects which will prepare them to meet the challenges of language immersion education and share resources and information with lleagues nationally and internationally.