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Studin asserts that French Immersion is an important part of supporting official bilingualism, but that was never the original intention of the program. When the “Mothers of Immersion,” Murielle Parks, Olga Melikoff and Valerie Neal established French Immersion in 1965, their goal was to help Anglophone children living in a mostly French speaking province become better at French. They weren’t trying to produce students who were bilingual.
That’s just as well, because in most situations French Immersion isn’t very effective at creating bilingual citizens. While data is scarce, research shows that fewer than 20 per cent of French Immersion students graduate high school with proficiency in French. Partly because the vast majority of students who enter French Immersion programs leave the program long before that.
Can a program that fails to meet the needs of so many students be considered successful? And if French Immersion is an effective way of promoting bilingualism, then why, after 40 years of exponential growth in French Immersion programs across the country, is the number of bilingual Canadians dropping?
So, if French Immersion isn’t very effective at teaching students French, why is it so popular? The unsettling answer may lie in the fact that French Immersion classrooms don’t reflect the diversity of our multicultural society.
French Immersion classrooms have more students from wealthier families, more girls and fewer students who need special education support than the average English speaking classroom. Some school boards also report that there are more white and more native English-speaking students in French Immersion classes than in English speaking classrooms.
French Immersion programs are further hampered by a significant shortage of qualified teachers. In 2017 the Halton Catholic District School Board almost cancelled their early French Immersion program explaining, “there is a French Teacher staffing crisis across the province of Ontario.”
Trustees at the Waterloo Region District School Board have called on the province to increase the number of qualified French Immersion teachers and former Education Minister Mitzie Hunter agreed that there are “ … challenges with teacher supply.” Surely, a lack of qualified teachers should be a concern for parents considering French Immersion.
In spite of these problems, the demand for French immersion places across Canada grows at about 12 per cent each year. This rapid growth creates headaches for school boards, stretching scarce resources even further and forcing difficult decisions. Boards employ a variety of solutions, but all of them have enormous consequences for non-French Immersion students.
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However, the biggest consequence of French Immersion for our education system is the “ghettoizing” of English language schools. French Immersion programs siphon engaged families and high performing students away from their neighbourhood schools. These are the families and students that are desperately needed to contribute to neighbourhood schools, ensuring that the education in those schools is as good as possible for all students.
French Immersion, like any education program, has positives and negatives, but the combination of those negatives with high demand is harming the education of all students.
Unfortunately, advocates of French Immersion persist in defending the program at all costs and insisting there are no problems. Perhaps instead, they could agree that we have some work to do to make French Immersion more effective and inclusive, and in doing so, improve our education system for all students.
Andrew Campbell is an educator and writer. He has taught in the public school system in Ontario for over 25 years, as well as two years in Kuwait. He is currently a Grade 5 teacher in Brantford, Ontario.
