User:Cd27053/Early immersion (foreign-language instruction)

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After the initial lag, studies have shown that early immersion students catch up to their peers in English only school programs after about two years on average.

In vocabulary, students in English only programs tend to do better than immersion students until English is introduced into curriculums in higher levels.

Early language immersion programs exist in several languages and regions, such as Spanish prominent in the United States, French in Canada. There also exists an emphasis on minority languages in certain regions, encouraging the support for those languages, such as Welsh, Catalan, and Maori.

Often during childhood, an emphasis is put on the learning of the second language as opposed to older years, when more of the first language may be incorporated.

After starting in early immersion, students are often expected to continue their educations and show competence or fluency in their second language skills.

Early Immersion in Belgium
In Belgium, among the three official languages, Dutch, French, and German, with three regions, Flanders (where Dutch is spoken), Wallonia (French), and Brussels (bilingual French-Dutch). According to Belgian national law, bilingual instruction (immersive instruction), is illegal with few exceptions, though each region may make its own linguistic laws. The Francophone Community, however, created a framework for bilingual education in German, Dutch, or English for between 25% and 75% of the teaching, creating a partially immersive environment. As globalization has increased, so has interest in bilingual education programs in the nation, though not the same extent as in full bilingual immersion programs such as those found in the United States and Canada.

Controversy
While early bilingual educations are often cited as beneficial to students, there remains some controversy as o the effectiveness of certain aspects. For certain students, linguistic difficulties in one language may not be solved by learning another, and may further impede their language development. While immersion benefits students in many and most cases, there are certain reasons in which children may opt out of early immersion for the better.