INDEPTH: EDUCATION
French immersion: Stalling enrolment, looming challenges
CBC News Online | September 15, 2004
Teenage students in French immersion programs read better than non-immersion students, according to a Statistics Canada report.
Fifteen-year-old immersion students scored higher in reading tests in every province except Manitoba, says a study released Sept. 14, 2004, and based on statistics from 2000.
Greg Doyle, a French immersion teacher, conducts a class in 2002 in Dartmouth, N.S.(CP PHOTO/Scott Dunlop)
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The positive results landed during a time when enrolment in second-language education has stalled.
French and English immersion programs blossomed in Canada in the 1970s, after the federal government adopted policies of bilingualism and multiculturalism.
Three decades later, immersion programs in one or both of Canada's official languages can be found in every province and territory, although the length and intensity vary widely.
By 2003, half of primary and secondary students – 2.6 million – were learning English or French as a second language. About 324,000 were enrolled in French immersion and another 1.6 million studied French as a subject.
More than half a million students took courses in English as a second language, offered in Quebec and New Brunswick.
Yet enrolment barely changed in the 1990s, after rising sharply in the late 1970s and 1980s.
The situation evoked concern from parents and francophones and prompted the federal government to earmark an extra $381.5 million for second-language training in schools.
What is immersion?
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"First language" refers to what children grow up speaking naturally. "Second language" is any other language that they learn in schools or elsewhere.
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There are two main ways that children learn a second language in schools.
In the core program, the second language is taught as a subject, just like math, history and English. Students in an English-language school, for example, might take classes in French. The time devoted to the language every week varies from one school board to the next. As well, some second-language programs start in elementary school while others begin in high school.
In immersion education, children not only take classes in the second language but also use it while studying other subjects. They're even expected to speak it at lunch and on the playground.
Immersion programs can start in kindergarten or Grade 1, midway through elementary school or in later grades.
French as a Second Language courses are compulsory in some grades in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario. In Quebec, all non-francophone students must take them throughout school.
Some other provinces and territories made second-language instruction compulsory, but opened it up to other languages such as Punjabi, Mandarin or an aboriginal language.
Immersion most popular in Atlantic provinces
While French immersion programs exist in English language schools systems in all the provinces and territories, enrolment is highest in the Atlantic provinces.
New Brunswick – the only officially bilingual province – attracts the most students, with 32 per cent of 15-year-olds taking French immersion, according to figures from Statistics Canada.
The Statistics Canada study – French immersion 30 years later – is based on a 2000 comparison of students that age from across the country conducted by the Program for International Student Assessment.
Prince Edward Island boasts 20 per cent enrolment, followed by Nova Scotia at 12 per cent and Newfoundland and Labrador at seven per cent.
Outside the Atlantic provinces, only Quebec is higher, at 22 per cent.
British Columbia lies at the bottom, with only two per cent of teens that age enrolled in French immersion.
The majority of the students in each province entered French immersion before Grade 4, except for those in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Challenges loom as enrolment stalls
By the start of this decade, French immersion and second-language programs faced a crisis.
Enrolment in second-language programs had skyrocketed in the late 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, it stalled. For a decade, enrolment figures stayed static, with half of students – 2.6 million – learning English or French as a second language.
A report by the Canadian Parents for French, released in 2003, suggests that the quality of French second-language instruction is threatened by inadequate teaching materials and a shortage of qualified teachers.
As well, it finds a steep dropout rate among high-school students. Some teenagers complained that there are not enough course options available in the second language, particularly in math and science. Others believed they were better off preparing for university in English. Some simply tired of studying in French.
Immersion programs have also fallen under attack as being "elitist," partially because they tend to attract students from wealthier and better-educated families.
Conversely, students who do not perform well in school – including those with learning disabilities – may be discouraged from enrolling in immersion programs, critics suggest.
Federal government gives a big boost
To counter stalled enrolment, the federal government gave a big boost to education in French as a second language in 2003, earmarking funds it hopes will double the number of bilingual high-school students.
Under the Action Plan for Official Languages, Ottawa's plans to invest include $381.5 million in additional funding over five years for elementary and secondary education.
The bulk of the money – $209 million – will go to a new fund for anglophone or francophone minority-language education.
In 2003, the proportion of bilingual francophones and anglophones from 15- to 19-years-old hovered around 24 per cent. The federal government hopes to raise that to 50 per cent by 2013.
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