s_allard wrote:Alas, it is not clear what reineke's latest cut and paste post was supposed to contribute to the debate..
The goal of French immersion in Canada never was and is not meant to produce native-like speakers of French...
There is a key misunderstanding here. The goal of French immersion in Canada is not to teach French to young children. The goal is to provide quality education at an early age using French as the medium of instruction for a certain duration and then switching to English at a later stage..
From a linguistics perspective French immersion in Canada has its limitations. It does not produce perfectly bilingual graduates and never will. But nobody ever pretended that. But it does produce graduates with a good phonology and fluency, the things that are the most difficult to acquire later in life. Everybody except Cainntear sees this...
So, it is true that early speaking in a typical French immersion environment in English-speaking Canada will lead to fossilized mistakes but also good phonology and ease of speaking. On the other hand, non-immersion French programs leads to next to nearly zero proficiency and eternal frustration. Take your pick...
Is French immersion a failure because so many students do not demonstrate perfect French? Of course their French is full of mistakes that would certainly qualify as fossilizations. But does mean that French immersion isn't working? Their parents don't believe so. French immersion has been a wild success. Parents line up overnight to get their children registered in the programs, and the idea has been copied around the world.
... while the naysayers and doom mongers talk about bad French and fossilization, the optimists like myself see great results compared to the traditional classes...
Just say ‘non’: The problem with French immersionFrench immersion—meant to inspire national unity—has turned into an elitist, divisive and deeply troubled system
March 22, 2015
"French-English bilingualism rates may be on the decline in Canada, but when it comes to getting kids into French immersion programs—which have come to be seen by many as a free private school within the public school system—there is nothing, it seems, that a Canadian parent won’t do...
Well-meaning parents may feel that French immersion is the answer for every child. In reality, it has become an elitist, overly restrictive system, geared to benefit a certain type of student...
Pierre Trudeau had a vision of a unified, bilingual country when he pushed for the first Official Languages Act, which passed in 1969, but the school system has not kept up with the challenge.
The immersion program creates division along lines of gender, social class and special needs students, wrote a 2008 study from the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy...
New Canadians, or those who speak languages other than English at home, are told something along the lines of: ‘English is enough of a challenge for you and your family. Why don’t you stick to the English language program?’ ” Wise says. “There’s no research evidence to support that kind of discouragement.” But it happens.
“You don’t want the English kids mixing with the French kids because that dilutes the whole purpose of being in an immersion setting... ”
From those Grade 12 students who then took an oral proficiency test, 99 per cent achieved at least an “intermediate” score, but only 42 per cent reached the mark of “advanced or higher.”
So, what about dreams of fluently bilingual kids with the perfect accents? “I think we were naive,” says Genesee. “It can’t happen if you’re only using a language five hours a day, five days a week for 10 months of the year.”
What happens after high school graduation? Turns out native English speakers living outside Canada’s sole francophone province are rather poor at keeping up their French skills as they get older. In 1996, 15 per cent of 15- to 19-year-old anglophones outside Quebec could conduct a conversation in both of Canada’s official languages. Fast forward 15 years and the bilingualism rate for 30- to 35-year-olds in 2011 was eight per cent.
Many of today’s youngsters are part of Canada’s second generation of French immersion students, the children of those who themselves took French immersion. The first wave, however, didn’t produce a giant pool of French teachers.
Canada’s French immersion system was once a model for the world, but it now lags behind countries in Europe where the European Union’s “mother tongue plus two” benchmark—hatched during a 2002 summit—set an ambitious goal for students to learn their native tongue plus two foreign languages. In a 2012 survey of 14 European countries, 42 per cent of 15-year-olds could keep up a conversation in at least one foreign language. The European Commission’s goal is to boost that to at least 50 per cent by 2020. The commission also set out to have at least 75 per cent of students in lower secondary education studying at least two foreign tongues by 2020, compared to the 61 per cent at the time of the report.
Credit Europe’s geography, which offers a multitude of cultures and languages in close proximity. Or the Internet and Hollywood for pushing English to the forefront globally. Regardless, Europeans will have plenty more than just one language on their CV in a global economy. According to EU data, more than half of all Europeans are already able to hold a conversation in a second language, while a quarter are able to do so in a third language. Even 10 per cent can keep up a conversation in a fourth language."
http://www.macleans.ca/education/just-s ... immersion/