| While research has shown the foreign language immersion of language majority children to be highly successful, the immersion of language minority children in the majority language has been shown to be far less successful and often detrimental, leading to "submersion damage," instantiated by negative effects on children's self-concepts, ethnic identification, academic progress and language proficiency. Attempts to explain this apparent paradox have appealed to hypotheses of linguistic deficits on the part of language minority children due to a home/school language switch, but such hypotheses have not been well supported under careful scrutiny. In addition, the feasibility of third language immersion for language minority students has not been established, in part because the causes of submersion damage are not well understood.;This study examines the effects of Korean/English two-way immersion on third language speakers who received no first language support, and includes assessments of self-concept, ethnic identification, academic progress and language proficiency. The effects of this third language immersion experience on these language minority children were assessed longitudinally, ending during the children's sixth and final year in the program, as well as cross-sectionally in comparison with similar children in other programs. The findings show that, except for the tendency for first language ability to decline among the third language children, the immersion experience has not been detrimental to the third language children, and hence that third language immersion may, in fact, constitute a source of educational enrichment despite the lack of first language support. These findings suggest that submersion damage is likely related to what I call "sociolinguistic status" rather than to supposed linguistic deficits incurred as a result of a home/school language switch.;The implications of this study, while only suggestive, provide further evidence of the social causes of submersion damage, and support the feasibility of immersion education for third language speakers as a form of educational enrichment, provided that the children have at least a basic proficiency in the majority language. |
