• Delaware Dual Language Immersion Model 

    Delaware Dual Language Immersion (DLI) Programs offer a robust bilingual experience for beginning with young learners at the point in their cognitive development that is perfect for the acquisition of a new language.  Elementary students benefit from the instruction of two highly-qualified classroom teachers—one who teaches them for half of the day in English and the other for half of the day in the immersion language.

    The elementary instructional day is split so that students spend 150 minutes with their Chinese or Spanish language teacher and another 150 minutes with their English teacher. The Immersion-language teacher is responsible for teaching math, science, and Language Arts in the immersion language. The English language teacher teaches English Language Arts as well as social studies standards and concepts from the Delaware Recommended Curriculum. They also reinforce math and science content by planning collaboratively with their partner teacher. Dual Language Immersion students follow the same standards-based curriculum in all content areas that non-immersion students follow in the non-immersion classrooms in the school.

    All districts with Elementary Dual Language Immersion Programs have identified an uninterrupted K-12 Immersion pathway for students to continuously build toward advanced-level language proficiency.  In the middle school, students take at least two courses per grade in the immersion language - advanced Chinese or Spanish language arts and the grade-level social studies course taught in the immersion language.  In high school, immersion students are well-positioned to take the AP Chinese or AP Spanish course in 9th grade and then participate in dual-enrollment/dual-credit courses with local universities.

    Resources for the Delware DLI Model

    The resources linked below provide additional information and details about the Delaware Dual Language Immersion Model, K-12 program articulation, and implementation expectations:

     
Last Modified on September 10, 2021