Exploring the role of English and education methods in English immersion education : A study on the elementary schools in Japan

Immersion education is an approach of using the target language as the medium through which curricular content is conveyed, to help the learners not only to strength their ability of the native language and the understating of lesson subjects, but also to acquire the proficiency in the target language and linguistic abilities in the immersion environment. As an important approach of bilingual education which is originated from Canada in 1970s, it has been in widely practical use in Japanese elementary schools from early 1990s. As the medium, English is considered as the second language (ESL) in the process of English immersion education. However, without enough English-speaking environment in Japan, especially in the daily life after school, English is also usually in the position of foreign language (EFL). Consequently, it is necessary to reexamine the education methods and its effect by taking the role of English into consideration in the English immersion education in Japanese elementary schools. In the paper, by presenting an overview of immersion education theories and practices in Canada and the USA, we explore the English immersion education environment in 4 Japanese elementary schools from the perspectives of class organization, use of the target language, subjects and assessment. As a result, we suggest the language education of English should be seen as being as important as subject education. Moreover, in the near future, with societies of declining birthrates and incretasing globalization, such as Japan, two-way immersion education is suggested to be a more suitable approach. In that case, as one of the multiple target languages, how to adjust the position of English between language education and subject education is a further topic for us to discuss.