RESEARCH ISSUES 601

enhance the likelihood of such transfer, to understand its limitations,and to pinpoint areas of likely interference.

Dual-Language Education forEnglish Language Learners

DONNA CHRISTIANCenter for Applied LinguisticsWashington, DC, United States

� Dual-language education (DLE) provides instruction aimed at devel-oping bilingual abilities. Contexts and languages vary widely, fromSpanish/English programs in the United States, to a Hungarian/Slovakschool in the Slovak Republic, to a Maori/English program in NewZealand (Christian & Genesee, 2001). These schools share a commongoal: development of the L1 of the students along with high levels ofproficiency and literacy in an L2. An increasingly popular form of DLE istwo-way immersion, in which students from two different languagebackgrounds are integrated for all or most of the instructional day. Allstudents receive content instruction and literacy instruction in bothlanguages, with the goals of developing bilingualism, strong academicabilities, and positive cross-cultural attitudes (Christian, 1996; Lindholm-Leary, 2001). There has been a surge in the popularity of these programsin the past 10 years, and they are currently receiving a great deal ofattention. The incidence of two-way immersion remains highest in theUnited States, but programs are being implemented around the world—for example, a Macedonian/Albanian program reported by Tankersley(2001). Gaps remain in the research base needed for guiding programdesign and implementation, however (Freeman, 1998; Tarone & Swain,1995; Valdés, 1997).

For all dual-language approaches, questions arise related to school-based language instruction and the need to master content through, andliteracy in, an L2 (August & Hakuta, 1997; Christian & Genesee, 2001).The acquisition of literacy competence as well as subject matter learningis a critical factor in academic success, and these processes need to bebetter understood when L2 learning is occurring at the same time(Crandall, 1992). Other important questions involve how to ensurelanguage learning to high proficiency levels when the focus is primarilyon content. Some critical research questions include1. What factors should affect choice of language and methods for initial

literacy instruction (e.g., L1/L2 proficiency levels, age of student,

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L1/L2 linguistic differences, grouping for literacy instruction, levelof resources available)?

2. How can students develop high levels of proficiency in the L2 andthe L1 when they are primarily learned through content in animmersion setting within a dual-language program (e.g., What is theoptimal timing and amount of L2 language instruction? What aboutfocus on form issues?)?

3. How do student characteristics (e.g., age, socioeconomic status,prior experiences, language proficiency) interact with instructionalprocesses and results? Are there any students for whom a bilingualapproach is not recommended?

School-based dual-language programs offer great promise for develop-ing the linguistic resources of a society and its members. L2 professionalstherefore must learn how to facilitate optimal functioning of and resultsfor dual-language education.

Interaction in the Classroom

KEES DE BOTUniversity of NijmegenNijmegen, Netherlands

� The general conclusion from the limited research on interaction inthe classroom as an explanation for acquisition (Hall & Verplaetse, 2000;Mackey, 1999; Ohta, 1999, 2001) is that specific, well-designed tasks inexperimental settings have a moderate effect on acquisition. It istempting to take this finding as evidence that interaction in the class-room leads to acquisition and to tell language teachers to have moreinteraction in their classes. This actually has been done. “Good practice”mantras stress the benefits of interaction, and teachers seem to acceptthis. The real point is to what extent and how the words of experts reflectwhat goes on in normal, everyday language teaching (cf. Gass, 1997; vanLier, 1996). For example, in a project on classroom interaction carriedout in the teacher education department of the University of Nijmegen(Hermans-Nymark, van der Ven, & van Esch, 2001), we were unpleas-antly surprised by data from observations in a number of normal,nonexperimental EFL classes. Even though the teachers observed knewthat we were interested in classroom interaction and may therefore havedone their best encourage it, the amount and quality of the interactionappeared very limited. Rather, the form interaction took was basicallythat the teacher asked a question and the student answered (or did not).If this is normally the case in a country in which attitudes toward English