The role of the target language in social immersion of haitian immigrants in Chile and educators' beliefs about its teaching and learning

ABSTRACT Chile has received massive waves of immigration in a relatively short time, notably from Haiti. These migratory movements have highlighted the lack of preparation of Chilean public schools to incorporate young people from Haiti, or other non-Spanishspeaking students, into the educational system. The creation of public policies to address the teaching of Spanish as an additional language in school would help these adolescents achieve a higher level of academic and socio-cultural integration; however, there is resistance among teachers, administrators, and education scholars on this point. In this article, we aim to show how these resistances stem from a lack of consideration regarding what the teaching and learning of an additional language truly implies.