
Just say ‘non’: The problem with French immersion (2015) - wallflower
http://www.macleans.ca/education/just-say-non-the-problem-with-french-immersion/
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diego_moita
This article is so wrong :

* scarcity of French immersion programs are not widespread in Canada. In Edmonton, AB, there are enough vacancies for the interested.

* the article confuses correlation and causality. French immersion students get better grades. But the simple fact that their parents want them in these programs are an indicator that these parents take more care and attention on education. And these parents care is, by itself, an important reason for better grades.

* if so many parents want it and there are clear reasons to believe they're good for the children (better pay) and for the country (strengthen the cultural identity) then the problem is that there are so few, not that they shouldn't exist.

Better say: "oui, nous voulons beaucoup!"

~~~
nacho2sweet
I have a little brother in Vancouver who is 20 years younger than me. He was
put in French immersion because her friend who was an elementary school
teacher said she had 15 out of 24 of her students be ESL or need special help
in a normal English school. French immersion here is just used for
segregation.

With that many children needing special attention or not speaking the language
any parent would suspect the learning environment of the classroom would be
brought down and try and get their children out.

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hamstercat
It's funny, because the reverse issue exists within Quebec. I can't say how
much better (or worse) it got recently recently, but I know that 15 years ago
English classes in primary and high school were very, very underwhelming. I'm
lucky enough that my school had an advanced curriculum available, but I have
friends that didn't have this chance and even today they wouldn't be able to
have a basic conversion in English. I think learning another language is
great, especially when you're young since you have plenty of time to do it at
that age.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Youth is the best time to learn new languages too, they're harder to acquire
later in life for some reason.

~~~
soperj
I've learned 4 languages now. English - only language my parents spoke. French
- did French Immersion Finnish - spent time in Finland in my teens and learned
the language German - just started picking it up 3 years ago

The main difference I see is 2 things, time & immersion. I know less German
after 3 years than I did through French Immersion, but I've spent way less
time doing it, never had any formal instruction, and haven't spent 7 hours
every week day having to talk and listen to German. I know more German than
Finnish though, simply because I didn't spend as much effort actually learning
Finnish, it all came from immersion.

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joshaidan
I was enrolled in the French Immersion program. At my school, we had both
English and French programs. One of my memories of being in French Immersion,
which is likely of relevance to this article, is that I remember in the 7th
and 8th grade one of my teachers (who was also the vice-principal) was
concerned about the segregation between the students in the French program and
the students in the English program. i.e. During recess the students French
program wouldn't play with the students in the English program, vice versa. We
may have had a name for students in the English program--but I can't remember
it now.

The segregation in the older years wasn't as strong as younger years, but it
still existed.

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kolanos
I attended two French Immersion schools in B.C. between 1988-1996 and this
article doesn't line up at all with my (admittedly anecdotal) experience.

I'm not your typical French Immersion defender, I hated French Immersion as a
kid. I attended hybrid schools where only maybe 1/4th of the school was French
Immersion and the rest were English and it made me and my French classmates
targets for bullying. The parents of the English students, for whatever
reason, didn't want French Immersion in their schools and as such there was a
lot of resentment passed down. It wasn't unusual for me to have to fight my
way home, being outnumbered 3-to-1 by English students who didn't want French
kids in their school. Maybe they thought it was elitist, but that couldn't be
further from what I observed.

I was raised in a middle-to-lower class household, the only reason I was in
French Immersion was my mother was a Quebecois transplant and didn't want me
to loose touch with the French-Canadian side of my family. Most of my French
classmates were also on the lower end of the income spectrum, with only a few
exceptions.

I never saw it as an economic issue. If anything, the biggest differentiator
between the English and French kids was the involvement of their parents in
their school activities. The Parent-Teacher events by the French Immersion
parents were typically packed, whereas the English PT events were sparsely
attended, regardless of income levels. It just seemed like the French
Immersion parents took a more engaged approach to their children's education
and participation in French Immersion was more correlation than causation.

I have no doubt that there are highly sought after public schools with waiting
lists and such. But if anyone thinks there's some special treatment for the
French Immersion students in Western Canada, then they clearly have only
looked into it on the most superficial levels or have an anti-French bias. The
special treatment is you have to do every class in French (except English
class) and you get beat up for the privilege.

I guess parents who care about their children's education are elitist. How
dare they.

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simlevesque
I just think it's nonsense that Canada has two official languages... and
that's from a quebecer. Two countries with each their own language would save
everyone involved so much money. Also, bilingualism to me is divide and
conquer: how can we (as in the people) change anything if we can't even
understand each other ? The status quo can't go on forever.

~~~
kolanos
This is hardly a uniquely Canadian issue. I looked at public schools in SF and
was amused to find there were Mandarin and Vietnamese only public schools that
would not accept my English speaking children because they didn't speak
Mandarin/Vietnamese. Again, public schools, in the USA, where English was not
an option. And the English schools had long waiting lists, go figure.

~~~
simlevesque
> This is hardly a uniquely Canadian issue

If you think you gave a good comparison, you clearly lack context. The
situation is completely different... it's not really about education, it's
about national unity.

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kolanos
You clearly haven't read my other comment in this thread. But regarding
Mandarin/Vietnamese public schools in the United States, how can that not be
indicative of a national unity problem?

Sure it is not on the same scale. But they're not teaching English, the
national language, at all. And they don't really have a choice as their
community doesn't speak English, either. So English doesn't really serve a
purpose, and by extension neither does integration.

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Mikeb85
I did French immersion in English-speaking Canada, and I'm very grateful for
it. Learning another language and culture introduces you to another way of
thinking, and learning a 2nd language young makes learning a 3rd and 4th much
easier. And it's not as though I invested any more time in school than my
unilingual counterparts... Just meant we had 1 less 'required' optional
course, they still had to make the time up.

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mast
In some parts of Canada (Ottawa at least), there is no shortage of French
immersion programs if parents want them, and I at least haven't noticed any
type of segregation.

When my son started school, we were concerned about enrolling in a French
immersion program because he has had speech and language development issues.
We were also worried because neither my wife nor I speak French so we weren't
sure if we could help him if he had trouble. During the registration we were
encouraged to try French immersion anyway and to switch later if he ran into
trouble. The school board provided speech and language therapy for him and so
far he is doing fine. There is an English stream at his school and the kids
from both play together, go on field trips together, etc...

I should note that starting this past year, all kids entering kindergarten are
taught in 50% English and 50% French. Only after two years of kindergarten do
they have the option of early French immersion starting in grade one.
[http://www.ocdsb.ca/programs/ele/fi/Pages/default.aspx](http://www.ocdsb.ca/programs/ele/fi/Pages/default.aspx)

~~~
bobochan
My son is very interested in attending uOttawa because of the bilingual
atmosphere of the campus and the city. We are Americans, but the mix of
languages and cultures in Ottawa really make it an interesting and
cosmopolitan environment, while still having a very walkable scale.

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dmckeon
For a USA-ian, it is interesting to see similar issues for language immersion
(in Canada) and US voucher-based charter schools, each relative to the local
traditional schools, with a tendency for students from higher-income families
to attend immersion (in Canada) or voucher-based charter schools (in the US),
and for traditional schools to retain students from lower-income families,
allophone/ESL students, and a higher proportion of students with special
needs.

While I'm in favor of exploring innovation in education, it seems like there
are intrinsic challenges to equity here, and a situation that cries out for
methods to equitably balance access to effective education.

[edited to clarify which schools in which country]

~~~
russellbeattie
The United States of America declared independence in 1776, becoming the first
independent, foreign-recognized nation in the Americas. This is why we are
called "Americans", despite the many subsequent independent countries also
residing in the Americas. Every country has a unique name for their
nationality, that is ours.

~~~
2preserve
See, whats funny to me about this, is that you've gone and given yourself the
title of "Americans", whereas the people who were there before you, and had
established civilizations, are given the title "Native Americans". That
doesn't make any sense. How about instead, Native Americans can drop the
Native qualifier and Americans can start calling themselves "Foreign
Americans". That's much more logical, and historically consistent.

(Also, "independent, foreign-recognized nation in the Americas"? What about
the Six Nations? They were certainly recognized as nations by the British)

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en4bz
Just a warning to readers that MacLean's is fairly anti-french/Quebec so take
this article with a grain of salt.

It also glosses over the main issue which is streaming. If a group of children
is smarter than their peers is it right to force them to learn at the same
pace as their slower peers and vice-versa. French immersion in English
speaking Canada is a streaming tool to get around the fact that classes are
not streamed and parents want their kids to get ahead and don't want "dumb"
kids slowing them down. Many other countries like France and Germany IIRC are
highly streamed and the article points to Europe as a place where leaning
additional languages in childhood has been quite successful.

~~~
Romanulus
Taken from Wikipedia: "Since lower socioeconomic groups and children with
learning and behavioral problems have lower rates of participation in French
immersion, a situation has developed in which ambitious families might prefer
French immersion for its effective streaming than for the bilingual skills it
gives to students."

I don't see how this is a problem, as you've noted it.

~~~
ashark
This kind of thing happens everywhere. Good school districts in the US aren't
usually good because they're better funded or because the teachers are really
amazing (those things may or may not be true) but because a variety of factors
(including housing costs, commutes poorly served by public transit) result in
much higher average teachability and lower disruptiveness in the student body.
You're purchasing _good peers_ for your kids when you buy/rent housing in a
good district, above all else.

~~~
KZeillmann
Except that good school districts usually _are_ better funded because they're
paid for with property taxes.

~~~
ashark
The _really_ bad schools receive a lot of outside money. Around here they pay
_substantially_ better than the good schools. It doesn't help much, because
the money's not what's making the difference.

[EDIT] Clarification: what _is_ making the difference is selection bias,
basically. The kids in the richer districts are _way the hell easier_ to
educate. Easy-to-educate kids tend to be so for reasons (family
circumstances/priorities/wealth) that also make them more likely to leave a
poorly-performing district for better (more expensive to live in) districts.
Effectively addressing the things that make some of the kids easy to educate
and some very difficult will have very little to do with school
quality/funding.

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weberc2
This website is unreadable on chrome for iOS. Content appears for the seconds
and completely disappears for 15 once you scroll.

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Kenji
>Hannah Spencer isn’t the kind of mom who leaves anything to chance.

So already we start off with a control freak who tries to defy the (random)
nature of reality.

>rentice arrived at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, three days before registration
opened, and was the seventh parent in line for the 17 kindergarten openings.

My goodness, that is like apple store, but with schools. Hipsterism, planted
right into the brain of your child!

>Outside Quebec, bilingual men earn on average 3.8 per cent more than their
unilingual counterparts, according to a 2010 study out of the University of
Guelph.

Worth sacrificing your childhood for.

Every day when I read about schools, I am so damn grateful I am an adult and
out of this insane institution.

~~~
Cpoll
> Worth sacrificing your childhood for.

Is that specific to French immersion? I don't see what that has to do with the
quoted text. If your child is already spending their childhood in school, you
should at least try to help them get the most out of it...

