Vancouver Magazine September 2005
The French Connection
Is French Immersion private education on public funds? How French became the talk of the town.
This story appeared in Vancouver Magazine September 2005
To immerse or not to immerse? That is the question that keen new mothers are asking each other when they gather, with toddlers in tow, at parent groups, children's book parties and group swim lessons. French is what tout le monde is talking about, with parents weighing the pros and cons, and school boards across the Lower Mainland scrambling to meet demand. Cultural and travel opportunities, an edge in the competitive job market, and fluency in Canada's other official language-these are the official reasons for the French frenzy. But if you drop by a Mother Goose singing group or a Waterbabies swim class, you won't get the poster version of why it's so popular. “The buzz about it is that it's private school education for free,” confides Richmond mother Lindsay Peacock.
French immersion has acquired a certain cache among parents eager to give their children a leg up. It's seen as an elite program within the public school system, where the brightest can sharpen their developing minds unfettered by any behaviourally-challenged classmates. “Once your kid is near school age, you talk about it all the time: If you've gone the English or French route, and about your experiences,” says Peacock. For her part, Peacock says she enrolled her six-year-old in the program because she and her husband believe it will open up learning opportunities. “A second language increases their ability to think.”
For most of the first two decades of French immersion-which launched in B.C. in 1973, fresh on the heels of Trudeau's official bilingualism-the number of students in the program built up gradually, in fits and starts. Over the past few years, however, those numbers have skyrocketed. The Vancouver School Board turned to a lottery for entry into kindergarten this September to deal with the huge lineups they saw the year before; more than 200 children were put on a waiting list. Richmond and Burnaby haven't yet had to turn away students for kindergarten, but portables are evidence enough of a recent onslaught of hundreds of new immersion students. The trend spans the province. Last year saw a record breaking 35,600 students enrolled in French immersion-about six percent of the B.C. student population-with the largest one-year increase in numbers since the 1980s.
So how do they really stack up-the French immersion kids, and the regular Janes and Joes? Well, if academic performance is the measuring stick, then French immersion students do appear to draw a longer one. The province's annual Foundation Skills Assessment-a snapshot of performance in reading, writing and numeracy-shows that French immersion students consistently meet or outperform their public school counterparts. But that's not because the French immersion students are more intelligent, according to Monique Bournot-Trites, an assistant professor of language and literacy at UBC. Partly it's because learning in French-especially for subjects like math-has been shown to improve a student's concentration skills and a capacity for abstract thinking. But mostly, says Bournot-Trites, better academic achievement can be attributed to one, decidedly non-scientific factor: hard-driving, demanding parents.
Theresa Mackie, a Vancouver mother who had her two daughters enrolled in French immersion, also found there was a higher expectation for students in the program. Although she credits the program for her older, more studious daughter getting into an Ivy League college, she decided to pull her younger, more exuberant theatre-bound daughter out of the program in Grade 8. “My younger daughter found it one layer too many to learn other subjects in high school,” says Mackie. “I felt her English skills were dropping. You have to monitor your child and weigh out the benefits.” The benefit she found both daughters acquired was better public speaking skills. “I think they quickly lose their inhibition of public speaking and of speaking their minds,” says Mackie. Teachers attribute the increased self-confidence to more verbal presentations and to the risk-taking required to learn a second language.
While pioneering supporters of French immersion may have been more politically motivated, with an eye to getting civil service jobs for their children, the recent shift towards immersion as a childhood development tool has broadened the pool of applicants. “French immersion programs have been accused as being elitist,” says Rita Parikh, executive director of the B.C. & Yukon branch of Canadian Parents for French. “I would say that accusation no longer holds.” B.C. now has 7,000 members in CPF: that's one parent for every five children. And with French immersion now at 241 schools in 43 districts, classes are becoming ever more representative of the general population-including those with learning challenges, says Parikh. “We believe French immersion is good for everyone, and there's no reason why anyone should be encouraged to drop out.” In fact, advocates point out that learning difficulties don't change with the language of instruction. “There's this idea that if you don't do well in French immersion, you can always go back to English and your children will do better,” says Bournot-Trites. “That's a false idea. Their lives might be easier, but they'll succeed at the same level.”
Yet in neighbourhoods with high percentages of ESL students, second language learning has taken on a decidedly Darwinian twist: to avoid those struggling with English as a second language, some parents are opting to move their kids over to French immersion. “I think ESL is the biggest factor for a lot of people,” says Angie Hill, a Richmond mother who's leaning towards immersion for her 18-month-old. “My concern is that kids who don't have problems with English aren't being challenged. General learning resources have been cut; we have more ESL students. So it's a double drain. [In French immersion], you don't have to worry about teaching English; you're not having to try to play catch-up.”
It's hard to ignore the demographics: in Richmond, for example, more than 60 percent of the student population-many of them Canadian-born-speak English as a second language; 25 percent are not considered fluent at all. Diane Tijman, Richmond's district curriculum coordinator, is uncommonly upfront about French immersion's popularity among some parents. “Dare I say that it's a racist thing that may be driving some of these parents to the program? I have to say some of these parents may be looking at the faces in these classrooms and assuming they can't speak English.” In fact, says Tijman, a significant number of those enrolled in French immersion in Richmond are ESL students-and they are thriving.
If varying English skills do have an impact on learning, however, school officials hope a one-year pilot study-starting this fall, and led by UBC's head of language and literacy education, Lee Gunderson-will help answer that question. “The purpose is to find out if the mix of ESL students and native English speakers makes a difference on language, reading and math acquisition skills, and on communication skills-in general and between students.” Both Richmond and Vancouver school districts are participating. Given Richmond's high rate of high school graduation and entrance into postsecondary institutions, Tony Carrigan, district curriculum coordinator for ESL, suspects the ESL factor won't prove to be much of a hindrance to academic achievement.
Perhaps more telling will be the information gleaned from the study on what happens in the communications between students in classrooms with larger numbers of ESL students where they're speaking the same language. “The speculation,” says Gunderson, “is that students don't have the same motivation to learn English. How does this affect the dynamic of the class? What does this mean for teaching?” What it means for some parents seems entirely based on fear. Among the reasons given to this writer: concerns over social alienation, and worries that English was not the language of social interaction in the regular program. For these parents, perhaps the real draw of French immersion is that it separates their kids from those who, they perceive, are not embracing English as their social language-and thus, are not embracing the Canadian way of life.
It s not exactly what the pioneers of official bilingualism had in mind for French language education, all this social stratification. Yet French immersion has proven itself to be a successful alternative to the regular public program that, in the long run, can enhance rather than compromise English skills (and, in an effort to spread to word to all parents, Canadian Parents for French is now planning to partner with immigrant service organizations to offer French immersion information in a variety of native tongues).
Questions remain: Will English, as a language, suffer? Will we, one day, develop into a society where speaking multiple languages becomes the norm, as in Europe? Will we realize Trudeau s vision: two official languages and a pluralist society? But perhaps most importantly, where are we going to find all these French-speaking teachers?