The applicability of immersion education. One very successful bilingual
programme is the immersion education practised in Canada, and Swain
( 1980) suggests that it might be applicable in other situations. In this
programme, a group of children homogenous in its complete lack of
knowledge of L2 is taught L2 as a medium by a bilingual teacher. The
teacher understands the children's utterances in Ll but replies in L2. Thus
the children first of all learn to comprehend L2. Ll is, however, later also
incorporated into the program:1J1e, and both languages thereafter serve as
languages of instruction throughout schooling. Swain does, however, point
out that certain cri~eria have to be present if such a programme is to be
successful. In the Canadian programme the parents belonged to the linguistic
majority and wanted their children to learn French, on the condition
that their ability in their native English was not impaired. In the case of a
vernacular low in prestige, such a programme would probably lead to rapid
assimilation, or, in Lamberfs words (1975), to "subtractive bilingualism"
where competence is gained in L2 to the detriment of L1. Thus Swain
concludes that such a programme could be successful in some instances, but
not in all.