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This paper reports on a qualitative study investigating the viability of instant messenger (IM) interaction to facilitate intercultural learning in a foreign language class. Eight students in a Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) class participated in the study. Each student was paired with a native speaker (NS) of Chinese, and each pair collaborated on eight intercultural-learning tasks over a 2-month period through IM. Data were collected through an ethnographic survey, intercultural sensitivity scale, follow-up interviews, the researcher's reflective journal, and participants' IM conversation transcripts. The results showed that student participants' intercultural interaction engagement and attentiveness steadily increased, they developed self-reflection capacities, critical thinking skills, and greater sensitivity and respect for intercultural differences during their IM-based intercultural learning. Participants also had predominantly positive attitudes toward IM use in intercultural learning.

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Due to their unique place and function in society as well as their position on the educational ladder, universities have had a rather belated encounter with immersion education. In fact, it was not until the late 1970s (Day & Shapson, 1993) that universities in Canada were obliged to address a range of pedagogical issues as a direct result of the growth of immersion education in schools, the increasing number of immersion graduates from schools, and the overall educational success of immersion programs. Naturally, these issues are contextually framed and dependent on the historical development of immersion in each country where immersion education occurs. In countries with larger and longer immersion education traditions, the influence on universities has been greater. Three issues are of particular importance here: (1) the linguistic needs of immersion school graduates at university, (2) principles of immersion pedagogy use at the university level, and (3) immersion teacher education. The latter issue is especially pertinent to broader questions of the preparation of second language teachers and will be addressed here.For studies exploring the nature and levels of language maintenance of immersion graduates after secondary schooling, see Harley (1994), Hart, Lapkin, Swain and Howard (1991), Wesche (1985, 1993), Wesche, Morrison, Ready, and Pawley (1990) for a comprehensive review.

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