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Does Early French Immersion Work?

BC hasn't tracked costs or results, but New Brunswick is pulling the plug.

Andrew MacLeod 10 Apr 2008TheTyee.ca

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee's Legislative Bureau chief in Victoria. You can reach him here.

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In BC, high demand.

British Columbia is unlikely to follow New Brunswick's move to ditch early French immersion anytime soon. But that's not because B.C.'s Education Ministry has asked hard questions about whether the programs are working.

A report prepared for the New Brunswick government found many French immersion students were dropping out of the program and few learned the language. The government responded with a plan to cut early immersion and focus on core French later in school, a move that has spurred an intense backlash. The province's ombudsman is investigating.

"We were surprised," said B.C. Education Minister Shirley Bond about the New Brunswick report. Her ministry will look at the 99-page study, she said, but stressed she is committed to supporting early French immersion.

"I can assure you that the provision of French immersion programs is a significant and important part of curriculum in British Columbia," she said. "Here in the province we have a growing population of families that are choosing French programs, so it's certainly not something we've contemplated."

Popular program

While French immersion may be a popular choice, and Bond said it is the only program where enrolment is growing, that doesn't necessarily mean it works.

In New Brunswick, the researchers found that of the 1,469 students who started in early French immersion in 1995 only about one in three completed the program. Fewer still, under 16 per cent, met the program's goal of having "advanced" or better language skills.

Asked for comparable B.C. figures, an Education Ministry spokesperson said the government does not have them. "We don't track early immersion students through to Grade 12," she said.

There are 41,000 students in French immersion in B.C. public schools, she said, including students in both early and late immersion. The ministry's six-year completion rate, which shows how many students graduate within six years of first enrolling in Grade 8, compares males to females, aboriginals to non-aboriginals and ESL students to those whose first language is English, she said. It does not, however, consider whether a student is in French.

"I guess tracking French students was something we've never done," she said.

According to Education Ministry policy, the "major goal" for the French immersion program is for students to become bilingual. The ministry is not, however, checking to see how many students meet that goal.

Extra costs

Nor is it clear how much extra it costs to educate a B.C. student in French compared to in English. New Brunswick found it costs millions more to offer French immersion. In 2007-2008, B.C. received $9.1 million in federal money to defray the costs of offering French. About half that is earmarked for immersion, the spokesperson said, and another $3 million can be spent either on core or immersion French at the discretion of local school boards.

That means the federal government is spending somewhere between $100 and $200 per B.C. French immersion student each year.

Provincial spending figures are not collected by the ministry, she said. School boards decide how to allocate the money they get from the province, and the government is not keeping track how much is spent on different programs.

Were B.C. to follow New Brunswick's lead, there would clearly be a fierce fight. A past executive director for the B.C. and Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parents for French, Rita Parikh, wrote an April 6 editorial for the Globe and Mail's online edition that called the New Brunswick decision "ugly."

Political question

The CPF's current acting executive director in B.C. and the Yukon, Nancy Taylor, said the New Brunswick decision was "shocking." She criticized the report's authors and the process they followed before saying, "This isn't the end of it. There's going to be a lot more coming out of New Brunswick. It's not a fait accompli, as they say."

It's unlikely B.C. will follow, she said. "Shirley Bond has been magnificent," she said. She is accessible and supportive of French in schools, she said. "We do have such a good relationship I'd be incredibly surprised if anything like that happened here."

French immersion isn't perfect, she allowed, but said 40 years of research support learning languages early. "The earlier the better, still the best way to learn another language."

The B.C. Teachers' Federation is also watching events in New Brunswick. "We haven't taken a position on it or anything," said BCTF president Irene Lanzinger. "I think French immersion teachers here are nervous about that move because they feel it's better to have the pure French immersion."

The BCTF's co-ordinator for French immersion, Moh Chelali, said the New Brunswick report was flawed. "I think it's really false. It was based on data collection, not sound research," he said.

As a former French immersion teacher, Chelali said he's confident the B.C. program works. "We have a history here in B.C. and we can see it is very succesful," he said. "The students themselves, the way they manage the language . . . They have very good skills with the language despite the fact we are not in a bilingual setting here."

More choices encouraged

The New Brunswick report recognized that many educators say anecdotally that early immersion is positive. But it also cited research that found students who started immersion earlier ended up with language skills that were no better than those who started later.

The report concluded, "For at least some students, early immersion is an excellent choice of immersion programs. For other students, the reports and data suggest they might have benefited from another program."

While New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada, B.C. is linguistically diverse. Besides English and French, top languages spoken at home include Chinese, Punjabi, Korean, Tagalog and Farsi.

B.C. requires students to take a second language between Grades 5 and 8, but it does not have to be French.

Certainly Minister Bond said the government wants to find ways to encourage school boards to offer students more choices, including French immersion.

It's important to consider reports like New Brunswick's, she said, but there are many considerations. "There are a number of things to consider when you make those kinds of decisions," she said. "The early introduction to a second language is an important principle as well. Our staff will obviously look at the report that's been presented to that particular government."

Finding out if the results are any better in B.C. might be a good place to start.

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