A CBC New Brunswick Forum broadcast live on March 27, 2008, from Moncton's Capitol Theatre provided a cathartic moment for parents angry at Education Minister Kelly Lamrock, who was linked into the discussion via satellite from Fredericton. Two weeks earlier, Minister Lamrock had declared in a press release that bilingualism was changing from an…

This study examines whether orthographic processing transfers across languages to reading when the writing systems under acquisition are sufficiently related. We conducted a study with 76 7-year-old English-first-language children in French immersion. Measures of English and French orthographic processing (orthographic choice tasks) and…

This contribution reports on a qualitative study conducted with 14 young Chinese children enrolled in French immersion in Canada, to explore their multilingual practices, and their simultaneous acquisition of three writing systems. Drawings and in-depth interviews constituted creative and age appropriate narratives to understand children's…

English language predictors of English and French reading development were investigated in a group of 140 children who were enrolled in French immersion programs. Children were first tested in kindergarten, and their reading achievement was tested yearly in both English and French from Grades 1 to 3, with word-level and passage-level measures that…

A new program for core French teacher candidates called FLAGS (French Language and Global Studies) was established at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2007. The program is intended for those who are keen to teach core French and possess rudimentary proficiency in the language but may not necessarily have the same proficiency or prior…

This article makes a contribution to the field of French immersion studies by examining the engagement realities of two groups of students in an Ottawa French immersion high school program: those with and without a parent who makes them eligible for minority French language instruction as outlined by Section 23 of the "Canadian Charter of…

In this study, I investigate how French immersion students in two junior high schools in Alberta see themselves in Canadian society. The data come from three years of ethnographic research that included classroom observations and 94 interviews with students, teachers, administrators, and parents. This study shows how French immersion students do…

Through an examination of one mother's journals about her son's academic struggles to navigate the French immersion (FI) program in Canada, this article explores the tensions that exist when the construct of "inclusion" is juxtaposed against that particular second language-learning context. The analysis of the mother's journals revealed…

In a Grade 9 core French class, the teacher designed a multi-stage project in which students composed original children's stories in French; illustrated their stories to produce picture books; then, in groups, adapted one group member's story into a play script; and, finally, dramatized the scripts for children from the local French immersion…

In the United States, foreign language immersion programs are K-8 voluntary programs wherein children are instructed in the core subjects in a language other than English. While these programs are quite popular, many parents, having chosen immersion for their child's education, change their minds and transfer their child into a "regular"…

This study examines factors correlated with the use of "nous" and "on" by university students formerly enrolled in French immersion programs. Their variant frequency and stylistic appropriateness are compared to those of (1) former core French university students; (2) French as a second language (FSL) speakers in a francophone environment; and (3)…

There is a shortage of teachers in Canada qualified to teach in French; some researchers have suggested that this shortage is due to attrition. This study examined the retention in Manitoba of new teachers qualified to teach in French. Participants were 130 graduates from the only French teacher education program in the province. Attrition was…

This study examined the English literacy skills of children in an immersion school, some of whom were enrolled in a French program and some in a Spanish program. The English literacy skills of the children enrolled in the Spanish program were consistently better than the English literacy skills of the children enrolled in the French program. In…

Target language as the sole medium of instruction mimics the environment of first language acquisition and immersion programs. There are no short cuts when teaching a toddler to follow instructions. It takes many tries, but each effort at communicating is a learning opportunity. Early language learners are very amenable to immersion settings.…

This interpretive multiple case study examines the motivation to learn a second language among sixth grade students who attended a French immersion school for grades K-5. Parent surveys, student surveys based on Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery, and individual and group interviews with students were the data sources used to identify…