In an immersion preschool, the teachers are the program. Whether a child spends the day hearing Spanish or Mandarin depends on who is in the room and which language each adult uses, so those are the first things a parent should ask about.
The questions below work for any school that calls itself immersion, bilingual or dual language. The examples come from WorldKids® School, a Spanish and Mandarin immersion preschool franchise whose founder, Nicole Chaudry, was recently named a 2026 Woman of Wonder by Franchise Dictionary Magazine for the second year in a row.
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What is an immersion preschool and how does it work?
An immersion program teaches through a second language instead of teaching the language as a subject. The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota, in a parent guide by Tara Fortune and Diane Tedick, lists the defining features of immersion schooling. Among them: during the elementary school years, at least half the school day happens in the second language, and the teachers are “fully proficient in the language(s) they use for instruction.”
Programs vary in how far they go. An introduction to immersion types published in CARLA’s newsletter describes total immersion programs that teach 100% of the day in the immersion language in kindergarten and first grade, and partial programs that hold steady at about 50%. Those figures describe elementary school, but they give parents a useful yardstick for preschool, too.
At WorldKids, a classroom that teaches both languages has one teacher who speaks to children only in Mandarin and another who speaks only in Spanish. Music, art, counting and handwashing all happen in those languages.
“When you walk into a WorldKids classroom, you have to imagine everything really happens in the language that we’re teaching,” Chaudry said in a September interview. “So it’s like you walk into a different country.”
How can I tell if a preschool is true immersion or just a bilingual childcare model?
Ask to walk through an ordinary day. A program may offer a language block, such as 20 minutes of songs and vocabulary, inside a day that otherwise runs in English. CARLA’s half-the-day benchmark was written for elementary school, but even as a rough guide for preschool, a 20-minute block falls well short of it.
- Which language does each adult use with my child, and does that change during the day? Ask whether a teacher keeps to one language at meals, naptime and pickup, or switches to English when things get busy.
- What share of the day happens in the second language? Ask to see a daily schedule marked by language. If the school can’t produce one, that’s an answer in itself.
- Do routines happen in the target language? Handwashing, lining up and sorting out a dispute over a toy happen many times a day. If those moments switch to English, the immersion is thinner than the brochure suggests.
- What happens when a child doesn’t understand? Ask whether teachers switch to English or show the meaning with gestures and repetition. Chaudry said her teachers lean heavily on body language with toddlers and preschoolers: “Let’s go wash hands. Let’s count one, two, three, four, five in Spanish or Mandarin.”
What credentials should immersion preschool teachers have?
In Washington, where WorldKids has most of its schools, the state’s child care rules set the floor. Under WAC 110-300-0100, a lead teacher in a licensed center must be at least 18 with a high school diploma or equivalent, must earn an early childhood education (ECE) initial certificate within five years of being hired or promoted (or by Aug. 1, 2030, whichever is later), and must add an ECE short certificate within two years after that. Those certificates have to be verified in the state’s workforce registry. None of those requirements is about language.
Washington’s rules don’t address fluency, so you’ll have to ask:
- Is the teacher a native speaker, or how did they become fluent?
- Where is the teacher in the state’s certificate timeline? In Washington, a new lead teacher can be working toward the initial certificate, so ask what training they’ve finished and what’s still underway.
- What training does the school itself provide? Ask whether the school trains fluent speakers in early childhood practice after hiring them.
Chaudry describes WorldKids’ hiring the same way. Early childhood education doesn’t require the teaching certificate that elementary school does, so it draws people starting out in the field. Many of them already speak Spanish, Mandarin or another language at home, even if they’ve been working in English.
“Now they’re speaking their native language,” she said. “They build a community within the team.”
New hires “can take classes through WorldKids and start with us and then work on their education,” she added.
How do I compare bilingual preschools on tuition, hours and teacher credentials?
Line the schools up on the same handful of facts:
- Hours. A full-day program and a half-day program aren’t the same product, even at a similar price. Note the posted day for each school, and whether the language portion covers all of it or only the core hours.
- Language by age. Some schools use different languages for different age groups. At WorldKids, infants are taught in Spanish, and Mandarin is added from the toddler years. Ask each school which language your child’s room uses now and what changes as they move up.
- Teacher credentials. For each lead teacher, ask about fluency, ECE certificate status and how long they’ve taught young children.
- Tuition. Tuition varies by school and city. Ask what’s included in the posted price, such as meals, supplies and extended hours, so you’re comparing like with like.
What should parents notice on a classroom visit?
Listen first. Notice which language the adults use when they aren’t performing for visitors: during transitions, a spill or a child who needs comfort. Watch whether children respond to the teacher’s language with gestures or words of their own. And ask the teacher a question in English to see how they handle it in front of the children.
“Once they realize, though, they can count in three languages, they’re really proud of that,” Chaudry said. When teachers ask them to count in Mandarin or Spanish, “they’ll go around and really show off, even at age three or four.”
