Introduction and background

The school discussed in this case study is Benowa State High, the first immersion program in Queensland and the one that became the model for immersion programs there. A late partial French immersion program has been running at the school since 1985. The author has been conducting research with the Benowa students and teachers since 1990.

In 1984, one of the French teachers at Benowa, Michael Berthold, was disappointed “with both the traditional approach to language learning and with the low levels of language acquisition of the students” (Berthold, 1989, p. 13). He had heard of French immersion and suggested to the principal that an immersion program could provide a solution for the problem of providing a stimulating educational environment for gifted and talented students in the school. According to Berthold, the special needs of the less academically gifted students were already catered for by resource teachers, but not so the needs of the more able (Berthold, 1989). Meetings were held during the course of 1984 at which Berthold and the principal attempted to convince firstly staff members, and later the school community as a whole, that the project should be trialed in the school. However, members of the school community were sceptical about the chances of success in Australia (Berthold, 1995).

After much deliberation, it was proposed to commence the program in 1985. The experiment would be tried for 1 year with one class, and continue only if it was successful in terms of its aims.