Last modified: marzo 24, 2025
Portuguese Immersion: Additional Information
“Utah’s Dual Immersion programs help to prepare our students for the jobs of tomorrow. Dual Immersion gives students a tremendous and early advantage in learning to navigate the national, cultural, and linguistic complexities inherent in our increasingly global marketplace.” – Governor Gary Herbert, Utah Governor
“In this increasingly competitive world, it is critical for Utah students to be able to deliver services and information in various languages and appreciate the subtleties of doing business in other cultures, much of which is learned through language study.” – Sen. Howard Stephenson, Utah State Senator
“With dual immersion, we have a way forward to ensure that Utah students are acquiring the skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to be competitive in the world marketplace.” – Dr. Larry K. Shumway, Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction
“Utah’s Dual Immersion Program effectively provides an excellent strategy for Utah students to realize their potential to become an advanced multilingual workforce, better prepared for the challenges of the world economy.” – Lew Cramer, President World Trade Center Utah
The Utah State Office of Education is proud to support Dual Immersion programs in Utah public elementary schools in Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
More than forty years of research consistently documents the power of immersion programs to help students attain high levels of second language proficiency. No other type of instruction, short of living in a second-language environment, is as successful. Young children especially thrive in this type of instructional environment. Happily, language immersion is also the least expensive way to deliver second language instruction.
The Dual Immersion program seeks to enroll students of varying backgrounds and all abilities. Applications are open to all students entering first grade. However, it may not be a wise choice for children experiencing significant communication delays in their primary language.
Second Language Skills
Students achieve high proficiency in the immersion language.
Improved Performance on Standardized Tests
Immersion students perform as well as or better than non-immersion students on standardized tests of English and math administered in English.
Enhanced Cognitive Skills
Immersion students typically develop greater cognitive flexibility, demonstrating increased attention control, better memory, and superior problem solving skills as well as an enhanced understanding of their primary language.
Increased Cultural Sensitivity
Immersion students are more aware of and show more positive attitudes towards other cultures and an appreciation of other people.
Long-Term Benefits
Immersion students are better prepared for the global community and job markets where a second language is an asset.
- Maximize students’ second language proficiency
- Provide a rich academic environment in both first and second languages
- Develop students’ abilities to work successfully in multiple cultural settings
- Offer a rich, culturally diverse experience for the entire community
- Commit to long-term participation in the immersion program
- Develop an understanding of immersion education
- Read with your child (in English) 20-30 min. daily
- Encourage the use of Portuguese outside of school
- Provide community support and, when possible, volunteer
- Enjoy the challenges; celebrate the results
- With over 220 million speakers, Portuguese is the seventh most widely spoken language in the world, and is the official language of eight countries, including Portugal, Angola and Brazil.
- Portugal has produced some of the world’s greatest explorers and literature.
- Brazil is famous for samba and bossa nova music, Carnaval, capoeira, and its five World Cup titles in soccer. Brazil is also a major tourist destination, boasting the Amazon rain forest and some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Because of Brazil’s rapidly expanding economy (currently ranked 6th worldwide in GDP), many American businesses are eager to hire Portuguese speakers.
- Portuguese is a good springboard to learning other Romance languages; students who speak Portuguese can generally understand and learn Spanish with little difficulty.
- Dual Immersion offers a rich bilingual experience for young learners when their minds are developmentally best able to acquire a second language.
- Instruction is divided between two high quality, creative classrooms: one English and one Portuguese.
- Students enjoy the advantage of two caring, qualified teachers. The English-speaking teacher uses half of the instructional day to teach English language arts (reading, writing, and spelling) as well as other elements of the curriculum (science, social studies, math, etc.)|
- The Portuguese speaking teacher uses the other half of the day to teach Portuguese literacy, math, and portions of social studies, science, art, music, P.E., and health topics from the grade-appropriate level of the Utah State Core Curriculum.
- In class, the Portuguese teacher speaks only in Portuguese and communicates using a range of engaging strategies including pictures, songs, games, body language, expressions, pantomime, drama, etc. Children at this age are adept at picking up language in meaningful contexts. After a brief period at the beginning of the year, students too will speak only in Portuguese during Portuguese class.
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