Bilingual processing strategies in a university-level immersion program. Ilha do Desterro

While university-level language immersion programs have been in existence for some years, research on the bilingual processing strategies of students participating in such programs is scant. This study set out to investigate how students in a college-level immersion program use both their native language and the immersion language to process meaning on academic tasks. Retrospective verbal-report data were collected from twenty-four Spanish, French, and German university-level immersion students directly after performing a classroom task (e.g., engaging in process writing, listening to a lecture, watching a video, or discussing an article). A third of those also performed listening, reading, writing, and speaking activities around a central topic outside of class, providing verbal report data. For listening, reading, and writing tasks, verbal report took place during the activity itself. Similarities and differences in bilingual processing strategies were analyzed: 1) according to individual student across modality, task, and program, and 2) comparatively among students within the same reporting context (e.g. class activity or out-of-class tasks). The immersion program students reported using less mental translation and more cognitive processing directly through the immersion language than did non-immersion program students who were also studying in the immersion classes. This findings would suggest that participation in the immersion program was promoting more extensive cognitive processing directly through the immersion language