Introduction
Nowadays English is common as a world language, and children are required to have a wide knowledge and high English ability. Therefore the Japanese government is focusing on early introduction of English education in elementary schools, one new bilingual program is getting a lot of attention. Words like “multilingualism” and “multiculturalism” still sound very new in Japan, because Japan is a homogeneous nation, with a 99 percent Japanese population and monolingual environment, which is very rare. However, Japan is slowly trying to move closer to a multiculturalism society by increasing immigrants, foreign workers, and exchange students. It is difficult to live together with different languages and cultures, but very important for globalization in the 21st century. Hence why developing these skills has become the education theme in Japan.
This thesis will look at the background of immersion programs in Japan and Canada as one of the best education ways to bring up bilinguals by discussing possibility of influences to understanding in second language. First, I will describe what immersion program is, introducing few types of immersion programs, and how it started. Second, ‘History’ gives a short account of how immersion programs spread to other countries with successes and problems came up from 1960 to 2010. Third, ‘Advantages and Disadvantages Points’ lists the surveys that I took at Japanese immersion school in Fukuoka and Canadian immersion school in Ottawa. Forth, ‘Comparison between Japanese and Canadian immersion program’ looks at the confronts of surveys and case study that I actually visited both English and French immersion schools in Japan and Canada. Finally I will talk about my interest in and the advantages of multilingualism in immersion program for bilingual studies.