NB makes the Globe... for all the wrong reasons
Immersion delayed, immersion denied
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
March 28, 2008 at 10:22 PM EDT
The speed with which small children can pick up a language is hardly disputable. Countless people on this planet observe it every day. Again and again, solid research has confirmed the phenomenon.
Yet the government of the only province in Canada that has declared itself officially bilingual is acting in defiance of this gift of nature. This month, New Brunswick announced that it will wind down the French immersion program in the early grades of Anglophone schools.
Kelly Lamrock, the province's Education Minister, has accepted the recommendations of a two-person commission that reported in February. The commissioners concluded that the dropout rate was high, and that the eventual linguistic results were unimpressive. They not only recommended phasing out immersion but also the removal of French as a core subject in the early years of elementary school.
Instead, there will be compulsory “intensive French” in Grade 5, for a minimum of 270 hours, with optional French thereafter. Although this intensive program is good in itself, it was only designed as a second-best, for thinly populated areas of Canada where there is little demand for French immersion. Mr. Lamrock and Dr. James Croll, one of the two commissioners, have acknowledged that early immersion is better.
Nor is it a matter of money, Mr. Lamrock has said. That leaves the basis for his decision unclear.
The report assembles some numbers and quotes numerous dissatisfied comments from various quarters. But there is a striking lack of analysis, which makes it hard to glean the commissioners' reasoning. They do not explain why so well-founded a concept as early immersion is not, in their view, working in New Brunswick.
“There has always been a lot of talk,” said the other commissioner, Patricia Lee, when the report came out, “that by putting children in early immersion that they're going to come out on the other end and be functionally bilingual and be able to walk into any job, and a lot of parents have gone on that premise for many, many years.”
That sounds as if Ms. Lee is refuting a straw man. Parents who place their children in French immersion make a serious commitment. Of course, all of us forget things, if we do not continue to use what we have learned. But if a wide enough range of high-school subjects are offered in French, students will indeed “come out on the other end” as functionally bilingual adults.
The real problem in New Brunswick appears to be that the government is not willing to train and hire enough qualified teachers.
New Brunswick, like the island of Montreal, is one part of Canada where bilingualism can be a lived reality, and French immersion is a program in which our country leads the world. It will be a grave national setback if the Fredericton government does not change its mind.
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
March 28, 2008 at 10:22 PM EDT
The speed with which small children can pick up a language is hardly disputable. Countless people on this planet observe it every day. Again and again, solid research has confirmed the phenomenon.
Yet the government of the only province in Canada that has declared itself officially bilingual is acting in defiance of this gift of nature. This month, New Brunswick announced that it will wind down the French immersion program in the early grades of Anglophone schools.
Kelly Lamrock, the province's Education Minister, has accepted the recommendations of a two-person commission that reported in February. The commissioners concluded that the dropout rate was high, and that the eventual linguistic results were unimpressive. They not only recommended phasing out immersion but also the removal of French as a core subject in the early years of elementary school.
Instead, there will be compulsory “intensive French” in Grade 5, for a minimum of 270 hours, with optional French thereafter. Although this intensive program is good in itself, it was only designed as a second-best, for thinly populated areas of Canada where there is little demand for French immersion. Mr. Lamrock and Dr. James Croll, one of the two commissioners, have acknowledged that early immersion is better.
Nor is it a matter of money, Mr. Lamrock has said. That leaves the basis for his decision unclear.
The report assembles some numbers and quotes numerous dissatisfied comments from various quarters. But there is a striking lack of analysis, which makes it hard to glean the commissioners' reasoning. They do not explain why so well-founded a concept as early immersion is not, in their view, working in New Brunswick.
“There has always been a lot of talk,” said the other commissioner, Patricia Lee, when the report came out, “that by putting children in early immersion that they're going to come out on the other end and be functionally bilingual and be able to walk into any job, and a lot of parents have gone on that premise for many, many years.”
That sounds as if Ms. Lee is refuting a straw man. Parents who place their children in French immersion make a serious commitment. Of course, all of us forget things, if we do not continue to use what we have learned. But if a wide enough range of high-school subjects are offered in French, students will indeed “come out on the other end” as functionally bilingual adults.
The real problem in New Brunswick appears to be that the government is not willing to train and hire enough qualified teachers.
New Brunswick, like the island of Montreal, is one part of Canada where bilingualism can be a lived reality, and French immersion is a program in which our country leads the world. It will be a grave national setback if the Fredericton government does not change its mind.