French Immersion decision

In My Humble Opinion
21

Because it’s my firm belief that ALL Canadian children should be taught both official languages, my two children went into French Immersion.

Child 1, very bright, went from Immersion to an all-French school, doing grades 3 and 4 in one year on the way. Today this child is in BC and a French language teacher in a high school - is totally bilingual and has an accent that has people believing the kid is a native French speaker.

Child 2, who was slower to speak English, the language at home, stumbled through Immersion elementary school. This child was fluent in French but the accent was like my own, best described as “sad”. Child switched to an English language school in grade 5. As an adult, this child moved to the western US and has since learned to ‘speak Spanish with a French accent’.

Child 1 has often said that almost all jobs applied for were awarded because of the second language fluency. Child 1 has 2 daughters who received their primary schooling in a French language school and will continue to take French in high school. Bless them; their accents are better than mine, but not by much
as they haven’t the ear for the French language.

Jean in Winnipeg

22

One thing I never really asked about with French immersion schools, are the kids allowed to talk english to their little buddies at recess and in the hallways or is that heavily discouraged.

Declan

23

Where my kids went, no attempt was made to stop kids speaking English (or in my kids’ school often Greek) to each other at recess.

At the end of one school year, my wife asked the French teacher to recommend books for my daughter in French. She refused, saying it was more important that she learn how enjoyable reading is than to make a chore of it. She had a couple advantages over her classmates: a nursery school year in French Switzerland and fourth grade at L’ecole francoise de Zurich. The older of her two brothers had the same second experience (third grade) but the younger one had no such experience. But all three are quite comfortable speaking French, if a bit rusty.

But now all three kids live in the US where Spanish would be more useful. The youngest has picked up quite a bit of Spanish without really trying.