L’immersion au niveau universitaire: nouveaux modèles, nouveaux défis, pratiques et stratégies

Abstract

Learning a language through immersion is done implicitly by explicitly teaching content, not language (Genesee, 1994). However, although immersion students’ listening and reading skills are near-native (Lapkin, Swain and Argue, 1983; Genesee, 1987, 1992; Harley, Cummins, Swain and Allen, 1990; Rebuffot, 1993; Lyster, 2007), their productive skills are significantly lower than those of their native peers (Swain and Lapkin, 1986). This prompted Swain’s output hypothesis (Swain, 1985, 1993, 1995). Swain maintains that content-based instruction (CBI) should offer language activities with a focus on form, thus allowing students to attain near-native proficiency in speaking and writing.

This paper will discuss the role of the language teacher in contentbased courses (Burger et al., 1984) within the theoretical framework of the bi-/multilingual competence (Coste et al., 1999) with a particular focus on how this competence develops within the various models of CBI. We will then present the model developed at the University of Ottawa (Burger et al., 1997; Edward et al., 1984; Hauptman et al., 1988; Ready and Wesche, 1992) and suggest several activities and strategies to implement the role of the language teacher. Finally we will discuss how to assess students’ linguistic abilities in this particular context.