Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French, English

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Pre-K
Elementary (K-5)
Middle School/Junior High
High School
Post-Secondary

This presentation looks at how ideological and social assumptions related to learning and teaching French bring challenges to students in French immersion. From a sociolinguistic lens and using discourse analysis, I will talk about what it means to be bilingual and to learn one of the official languages in Canada.

 

French immersion in Canada has a long history. In Western Canada, the program is very well established and several students attended French immersion schools in the past and continue to do so. The program is successful for many reasons but there are also some challenges, not related directly to the program, but linked to the learning and teaching French in Canada. French is an official language in Canada and francophones or French Canadian are very proud of their language and culture. When it is time for English speakers or Allophones (people who don’t speak French or English as first language) to learn French, they are facing ideological and social assumptions related to the language. French might be a ‘chic’ language to learn in USA or elsewhere but, in Canada, it means being part of an ethnocommunity that fight for their rights and has specific ‘rules’ for those who wants to join in. In this presentation, using a discourse analysis and a sociolinguistic lens (Heller, 2011), I will look at how French is seen from parents, administrators, students and teachers in French immersion schools. I conducted an ethnographic research in six schools over a period of 3 years, collecting observations notes and interviewing participants. I will show that one of the reasons students in French immersion are not seen as legitimate speakers of French is because they don’t ‘live’ in a francophone culture. They are not considered bilingual either because they don’t speak French with a high competency even if we know that being bilingual means using languages in different contexts for different purposes (Grosjean, 2008).

Grosjean, F. (2008). Studying Bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 Heller, M. (2011). Paths to Post-Nationalism. A Critical Ethnography of language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.