Immersion compromise
Published Wednesday August 6th, 2008
Education Province to start early French in Grade 3, rather than in the fifth grade
FREDERICTON - The Liberal government is reversing its contentious plan to scrap early French immersion, replacing it with a hybrid model that is earning plaudits from people who once fought the reforms.
Forced into the policy change by parents' protests and a court decision, Premier Shawn Graham and Education Minister Kelly Lamrock rolled out the new French second language education system on Tuesday. Lamrock told a news conference that Court of Queen's Bench Judge Hugh McLellan actually did the government a favour by forcing them back into six weeks of public consultations.
Initially, he feared holding up the reforms could send a message that the province could be boxed into the status quo, Lamrock said.
"We had to go back and consult and slow down, which we should have done in the first place," Lamrock said. "But people also knew that were also very serious about addressing equality and that allowed, I think, a number of creative thinkers, those who wanted to seek a better balance, to come to the forefront."
The revised system features a universal kindergarten to Grade 2 system that will include modules designed to introduce French culture in the earliest years and an immersion program beginning in Grade 3 instead of Grade 1.
Children already enrolled in early immersion will continue in the program and Grade 3 immersion will start in 2010, which is when the first cohort of students will be old enough to enter.
Students who stay out of the immersion system will have enhanced second language instruction in what the government is calling pre-intensive French in Grade 4 and provincewide intensive French in Grade 5. The province is maintaining a Grade 6 starting point for late immersion.
Non-immersion students will have a new post-intensive French program designed to boost their language skills. All programs will end after Grade 10 and a "blended high school" program will be established so any student with an intermediate or higher score on an oral proficiency test will be able to take French second language courses in grades 11 and 12.
The ultimate goal is to have 70 per cent of students bilingual.
Lamrock is also developing a ministerial advisory committee that will offer the government advice on improving the system.
The province is starting a new centre of excellence that will keep tabs on developments in French second language training, inclusive education and student achievement. As well, the province will spend $6.2 million over five years to develop components of the new system and investing in teacher training.
The entire program will be subjected to a review in 2015-16, which is the year the first group of students in the Grade 5 intensive program will graduate from high school.
After the province was ordered by the court to re-engage the public on the reforms, the province hosted a number of forums with experts and stakeholders that generated 1,600 public suggestions. The province examined 14 proposals in depth before coming up with the new system.
Alison Menard, president of the Canadian Parents for French, admitted that many parents may be disappointed by the removal of a Grade 1 starting point. However, Menard said the six-week round of consultations offered all sides a unique perspective in achieving the competing objectives of reducing streaming and not eliminating opportunities for second language instruction.
"It feels like a compromise, because it is half way between Option A and Option B," Menard said. "But I honestly believe, in the post-court ordered consultation process, a lot of thought went into how to balance objectives."
Lamrock went into the process arguing the province had to improve student achievement levels that routinely rank as among the lowest in the country. The minister also said streaming neded to be eliminated, because almost all special needs students ended up in the core English program while higher achieving students were being placed in smaller immersion classes.
Doug Willms, the director of the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy at the University of New Brunswick, described the reforms as a modest step in the right direction and called on the government to launch extensive testing to monitor how students are learning in the new system.
"To me, this is a case where politics has clashed head on with pedagogy and I admire minister Lamrock's courage to confront the status quo," Willms said. "In the longer term, though, I would not give up on the idea of a school system where children are not segregated and all children have the opportunity to learn a second language."
Other experts who had been involved in the controversy since it erupted in March endorsed the new model.
Joan Netten, a co-architect of the Intensive French program, labelled the latest attempt to reform second language programs "a very reasonable compromise."
Netten quarrelled with the education department's March plan to replace early immersion with her intensive French model because she argued the Grade 5 program was never designed to act in the place of early immersion. Netten said this new system has the potential to be an example for the rest of Canada.
"I think it should have very good results," she said. "I think it will improve dramatically the bilingualism at the end of the road for the children in the school system. And I think one has got the possibility one of the strongest and most effective immersion programs in Canada with the new model that we are proposing."
Wayne MacKay, who wrote the influential report on inclusive education, said the Grade 3 entry point will help ease the impact of streaming in the earlier grades.
From her perspective, Paula Kristmanson, a professor at UNB's Second Language Education Institute, said she still feels a Grade 1 entry point is the best way to teach children a second language.
"I'm hopeful, and I feel there may be great promise in this, and I do hope our institute is a part of the team that looks at the curriculum in the Grade 3 entry," she said.
With the new system coming into place for September, Brent Shaw, president of the New Brunswick Teachers Association, said he believes the new courses will be ready. He said this new program will be easier for teachers to transition into than the March model.
"With the immersion staring at Grade 3 it is closer to what we had had before so I assume it will be less of an impact," he said.
More Actualités
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (13)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
Here we go again ...
Fire Kelly Lamrock!
The province's Education system should not be based on a political compromise.
It will also not be in sync with other provinces creating problems for parents transferring from one province to NB or vice-versa.
It will not correct other problems such as too much centralization in the DOE and the gross mismanagement by the same DOE.
It is a solution based on a political compromise to correct an inefficient beginning. If thee foundation of the house is crooked, no compromise will make the rest of the house straight.
If Lamrock had stayed the course and left the FI option at Grade 6, the Conservatives would campaign to reinstate it meaning that, when they come to power in 2010, my child would be able to access French Immersion... in grade 3. Yet Lamrock and Graham want to spin it as if they have made concessions. They have given us nothing while taking things away.
Can we have 2010 tomorrow?