Northern Light
Superstar
As someone who started bilingual (mother was Quebecoise), lost a good deal of it by grade 4 when the schools here started French, regained a good deal by the time I graduated HS (took French all the way through), then traveled, including to France, and is now losing it again due to rustyness........
I see a value in being bilingual, I do think a younger age makes a difference in terms of ease of learning, as does immersion in terms of preferred technique.
For contemporary knowledge on the subject, my niece did immersion.
A few further thoughts, getting into immersion is not as easy as checking a box; there is/was a lottery system as there are far fewer immersion spaces than demand.
So simply wanting/requesting immersion is not enough; the education system has both financial constraints and too few qualified French teachers to aggressively expand the system
The full-on French system in Toronto is busting at the seems, as it is grossly under capitalized (they require larger and additional schools, but have been denied access in the past to closed TDSB schools.)
Further, as outline above by @zang, the way in which non-immersion French is taught is not very effective.
We need more money and more teacher training to get the number of student places in the French and French immersion systems up to where they should be.
We also need to change the way non-immersion French is taught.
The province of New Brunswick is testing a new way to do this as we speak.
Their report from 2012 on what changes they were looking at is below.
I would suggest introducing French no later than Grade 3, and I think after 1 year of 'basics' where French should be 1-hour per day, every day; the next year ALL students should have to do 1 semester in French, entirely, no English class.
From there continuing on could be elective; because I think we could reach near-fluency in 18-months and provide a sound basis where students could go into immersion late; or continue on with regular classes in English but pursue 'advanced' French courses within an English program; or decide they won't want to go further.
I see a value in being bilingual, I do think a younger age makes a difference in terms of ease of learning, as does immersion in terms of preferred technique.
For contemporary knowledge on the subject, my niece did immersion.
A few further thoughts, getting into immersion is not as easy as checking a box; there is/was a lottery system as there are far fewer immersion spaces than demand.
So simply wanting/requesting immersion is not enough; the education system has both financial constraints and too few qualified French teachers to aggressively expand the system
The full-on French system in Toronto is busting at the seems, as it is grossly under capitalized (they require larger and additional schools, but have been denied access in the past to closed TDSB schools.)
Further, as outline above by @zang, the way in which non-immersion French is taught is not very effective.
We need more money and more teacher training to get the number of student places in the French and French immersion systems up to where they should be.
We also need to change the way non-immersion French is taught.
The province of New Brunswick is testing a new way to do this as we speak.
Their report from 2012 on what changes they were looking at is below.
I would suggest introducing French no later than Grade 3, and I think after 1 year of 'basics' where French should be 1-hour per day, every day; the next year ALL students should have to do 1 semester in French, entirely, no English class.
From there continuing on could be elective; because I think we could reach near-fluency in 18-months and provide a sound basis where students could go into immersion late; or continue on with regular classes in English but pursue 'advanced' French courses within an English program; or decide they won't want to go further.
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