The term was coined by Keith Baker and Adriana de Kanter in a 1983 recommendation to schools to make use of Canada's successful French immersion programs.
[1] The Canadian model was developed to encourage bilingualism through immersing Anglophones in the minority language and replaced many English-only laws in various Canadian provinces before the 1960s, while in the United States the same approach was advocated to force minority speakers to adopt English.
Specially developed for ELLs, these lessons are based, to a large degree, on the mainstream curricula.
[2] In a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Horne v. Flores, the majority opinion stated, "Research on ELL instruction indicates there is documented, academic support for the view that SEI is significantly more effective than [transitional] bilingual education.
"[4] The chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, Linda Chavez, praised the Supreme Court ruling, noting "the failure of bilingual education in performing the number-one job of our public schools, which is to teach children English so they can succeed in 21st century America.