Teachers as Mediators in Language Immersion Education: Navigating Ideologies, Cultures and Identities

This book explores the role of teachers as intercultural mediators within language immersion education programs. The authors draw on research conducted in the context of a one-way French immersion program in New Brunswick, Canada, an officially bilingual province and country. Their discussion is anchored on the landmark Douglas Fir Group framework of second language acquisition, examining the implications of macro-level ideologies for language education, curriculum and intercultural instruction. The book considers educators’ placement within the framework and their potential role as intercultural mediators between macro-level ideologies, meso-level curricular implementation, and their students at the micro level. They even provide an amendment to the framework that models this mediating role. Through interview data with entry point early French immersion teachers and principals of their schools, the authors emphasise the importance of theoretically situating teachers’ positions as mediators of ideology and culture. Through this, we can fully understand what it means to incorporate intercultural competence into language learning. They argue that, teachers receive little support—either through curriculum or through training—on how to engage with (inter)cultural instruction in their practice. They then describe their own course for training pre- and in-service teachers on intercultural mediation in their language education practice, applicable to a variety of language learning models and contexts.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Surveying the Field 1. The Study 2. Language Ideological Debates 3. What is Bilingualism? 4. What is Bilingualism for? 5. Educational Policy and Curriculum Documents 6. Teachers’ and Principals’ Interpretation of Policy/Curriculum Documents 7. Implications for Language Teacher Education Conclusion: An Amended Douglas Fir Group Framework References Index

About the Author :
Kelle L. Marshall is Professor of French Studies at Pepperdine University, USA. Wendy D. Bokhorst-Heng is Professor in the Faculty of Education at Crandall University, Canada.

Review :
This volume offers an insightful, multi-layered exploration of French Immersion in New Brunswick, using and extending the Douglas Fir Group framework to analyze how language ideologies at macro, meso, and micro levels shape education policy and classroom practice. The book uniquely foregrounds immersion teachers as intercultural mediators, prepared to connect language learners’ identities with target-language communities. Blending rigorous theory with practical examples, it provides valuable tools for educators and policymakers alike. Essential reading for advancing bilingual education beyond economic narratives. Through a gradual unfolding of the macro, meso and micro forces at play, Kelle Marshall and Wendy Bokhorst-Heng reveal the intricate debates, perspectives, tensions, and at times contradictions, that emerge in bi/multilingual languages education, and specifically in the French/English immersion practice in New Brunswick, Canada. What is most impressive in this work is the careful unfolding of the complexity of the phenomenon of teaching languages bi/multilingually by authors who are themselves highly committed languages educators, reflecting deeply on their own framings and those of others and revealing the intricacy of the work of teachers of languages. They recognise the crucial need to build teachers’ meta-awareness of their own linguistic and cultural situatedness, their own ideological positioning, and their own and their students’ subjectivities. This compelling book offers a deeply nuanced exploration of the layered ideological terrain of French immersion education in New Brunswick, revealing how language, culture, and ideology intersect in classrooms and policy. Drawing on years of collaborative research and framed by the Douglas Fir Group’s model, the authors shed light on the powerful but often invisible role teachers play as cultural mediators. Their call for a more human-centered, intercultural approach to language education is both timely and necessary. A valuable and insightful contribution to applied linguistics and language policy, this book will resonate with educators, researchers, policymakers, and anyone seeking to understand the interplay between language, culture, and identity in immersion contexts and beyond. This book features findings stemming from qualitative studies set in the context of French immersion in Canada’s only bilingual province— New Brunswick. The multifaceted theoretical frameworks as well as the detailed contextualization offer a solid foundation to this unique work. The voices and perspectives of participants are front and centre, thus providing a sense of authenticity and resonance. The focus on ideologies at macro and micro levels affords an intriguing view of FI programs situated a complex historical/social/cultural/political context. This book is strengthened by the authors’ roles as experienced scholars and educators. This multi-faceted case study of languages education in New Brunswick, Canada, traces interleaving threads of ideologies, macro to micro, illustrating how these shape provisioning, curricula and pedagogies in languages education. The account is meticulously presented and robustly evidenced, revealing the temporal stickiness of ideologies, particularly neoliberalism, despite recognition of humanistic goals of intercultural engagement and identity formation. Advocating an intercultural orientation, the authors outline a richly conceptualized teacher training course and lesson plans incorporating the transformative process of reflection and reflexivity that enable this orientation. Beyond outstanding scholarship, Marshall and Bokhorst-Heng offer a deftly crafted narrative; an origin story that illuminates current provision, and a futuristic story of languages education reimagined; where we embrace people, in all their linguistic complexity and subjectivities, and strive towards reciprocal engagement and acceptance.