Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am presenting this report from the perspective of a university professor who is involved, on a daily basis, in teaching and researching French immersion. However, this perspective is influenced by my past experience as an immersion teacher in the public system, as the parent of two children who were placed in immersion in three Canadian provinces, and as someone who learned French as a second language.
French immersion programs continue to be very successful both in Canada and abroad. I am currently writing an article with a colleague for an international review on the development of immersion in North America and along the Pacific Rim. This Canadian innovation in the world of second-language learning continues to be one of our country's most significant exports and has put us at the forefront of second-language teaching in the world. These are very impressive achievements. However, the objective of this report is to comment on the state of French immersion as it exists in Canada in 2013.
With respect to some lessons from the recent past, I'm going to begin by talking about what happened recently in New Brunswick and by drawing some lessons from that experience.
In July 2007 the New Brunswick Department of Education commissioned a review of French second language programming. The then minister of education, Kelly Lamrock, appointed two commissioners, James Croll and Patricia Lee, neither one an expert in the area of second language education.
On February 27, 2008, the commissioners released their report. To the disbelief of informed readers, that report presented a totally one-sided negative view of early French immersion in New Brunswick.
The views of second language experts and other key informants, such as the Commissioner of Official Languages, who spoke about the benefits of early French immersion as well as the problems that needed to be addressed, were not included in the report. Years of research on early French immersion demonstrating its effectiveness with regard to French proficiency and overall literacy were also ignored, yet the minister decided to implement all the major recommendations of the report, including the elimination of early French immersion.
Consequently, New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, is now the only province without an early entry French immersion program. In fact, it does not have any French second language programming from kindergarten to grade 3.
This radical decision to eliminate the grade 1 early French immersion program was unnecessary and unwise. According to the New Brunswick provincial government's own assessment statistics, early French immersion is the only program that has a large majority of students consistently achieving intermediate-plus oral proficiency, 82% of them. In addition, 33% achieve advanced proficiency in oral French. By way of comparison, 44% of late French immersion students and only 4% of core French students achieve intermediate-plus proficiency.
There's no evidence that students in any other program reach intermediate proficiency by the end of high school.
I would recommend, therefore, that the federal government, while providing support for other entry points to immersion, focus upon early French immersion as the standard entry point for French immersion across Canada.
I'd like to talk now about French immersion as a universal program.
French immersion has been described by some as an elitist program that contributes to segregation. However, French immersion in New Brunswick, as in the rest of Canada, is an integrated part of the public school system. It is also a choice that, in principle, is open to all parents. It is difficult to see how the term “segregation” could apply in this context.
There is, however, an undeniable degree of streaming that occurs in schools that offer early French immersion. It would appear that public policies, as well as economic and social forces, affect streaming.
Children with special needs have problems related either to ability or to behaviour, or to both, since the two are often connected. It is also the case that more students who experience difficulty come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Understanding these complex interrelationships and providing teachers with the resources to address them are crucial to students' success in any classroom or educational setting.
It is important to address the streaming issue in order to make early French immersion the inclusive program it should be. Parents of children who are more likely to find school academically challenging should see early French immersion as a real option for their children. Early French immersion offers the best chance for children of a wide range of academic abilities to become bilingual, because it focuses primarily on language development in the early years and does so in a very natural way, very much like the way students learn their first language.
As a corollary to recommendation one, then, I recommend that the federal government support early French immersion as the most inclusive program option and ensure that supports are in place for teachers and students so that learners of a broad range of abilities enter into and remain in early French immersion.
Is early immersion a successful program? We have seen that the level of oral competency of early immersion graduates was significantly higher than that of students from other programs. Moreover, a large number of scientific studies across Canada have confirmed the program's success.
Despite these positive results, there is a problem with students dropping out of the immersion program at the secondary school level. But that does not mean that these students do not want to keep studying in French. In many cases, the courses that students would like to take are not offered in French. This is particularly true for advanced math and science courses. If we want to see a higher percentage of graduates from our immersion programs and stronger second-language skills, we need to do more at the secondary level. Otherwise, all of our efforts at the elementary and middle-school levels may be in vain.
I therefore recommend that the federal government encourage the provinces to increase the resources available at the secondary school level to develop and offer a broader range of courses in French. Initiatives to train and recruit bilingual math and science teachers are a critical part of the equation.
Related to the previous topic is the issue of teacher education. As a professor in a faculty of education, this is of particular concern to me.
Our experience has consistently been that there are many students who wish to undertake studies in education to teach in immersion, but do not have the required language proficiency level. Many of these are graduates of French immersion and a number have also completed majors in French at Canadian universities. Clearly, in order to reach a level of language proficiency to teach French, one needs to do more. The issue of alternative French options at anglophone Canadian universities coupled with exchange or medium to longer stay programs in francophone milieux are critical to having a pool of linguistically qualified candidates who can then become pedagogically qualified.
I recommend therefore that the federal government enhance its support of exchange and medium- and long-term programs for prospective French teachers, and provide support to anglophone universities to provide alternative French learning opportunities for students.
I want now to turn to the future of immersion.
Immersion has grown tremendously since it began 45 years ago. It has had a considerable impact on second-language learning here in Canada and around the world. However, we can do more. There are two important questions. How can we best use students' existing knowledge in their first or second language to help them learn French in an immersion context? And how can students with learning difficulties succeed in reaching their potential in an immersion context?
Right now, three of my doctoral students here at the University of New Brunswick are exploring these questions in French immersion classrooms. These students represent the future and will play a critical role in providing our programs to an increasingly diversified clientele. They are receiving financial support from the federal government through the granting programs of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Canadian Heritage, through the Official Languages in Education Program. They would not be able to pursue their research and their careers without that support.
So I recommend that the federal government maintain and even increase its support for research into second-language teaching and, in particular, its support for graduate students and new researchers.
In conclusion, French immersion, in particular early French immersion, is both a national and international success story. There is, however, still a lot of work to do to make this program accessible to a wider audience here at home. Currently, we see wide discrepancies in enrolments, with 36%, 23%, and 21% of students enrolled in immersion in Quebec, New Brunswick, and P.E.I., but only about 8% to 10% in other provinces and territories. The enrolment trend is upward, and that is positive, but we need to do better. We need to remove the barriers. There is no need for lotteries to decide who gets in, and the lack of support for struggling learners should not be creating a system where only some can stay in.
We can do better, and to create a more truly bilingual society, we must do better.
Thank you very much.