French Immersion in Anglophone Canada

[[So, here’s the first of my essays I’m going to post - I wrote this in my first year at Carleton, for an Intro to Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies class. I know it took a while for this post to appear - I was worried it would take a lot of effort to convert the essay to Markdown. I only remembered this morning that Janna Fox, our professor, told us to use as little formatting as possible - if we wanted to emphasize something, we needed to do it with words, not formatting tricks. It was good advice, I think, though on the internet a bit of italics and bolding has its uses.

As for the essay itself, it was for an assignment along the lines of “write an essay about something we’ve talked about in the last month.” So I wrote about second language learning, and my experience with it. I don’t think I made a particularly good argument for anything, but I think the story is valuable. In that respect, you’re probably going to be annoyed by the references I make to our class material. Still, it’s not terribly long, and I don’t think you need much background knowledge to understand it. I hope it’s an enjoyable read!]]

French immersion holds a strange position in the Canadian education system, especially in anglophone areas like my hometown of Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Most parents who enroll their children in the program work for the federal government, or some other position where they see the value of being bilingual. The promise of a bilingual position becomes the main motivating force for many French immersion students. Yet many of us found ourselves ignored or derided by actual francophones when we tried to practice our French during trips to Quebec. Sometimes they would speak to me in incomprehensible English or act as though my French made absolutely no sense [[editor’s note: maybe it didn’t]]. After years spent in the French immersion program, they were telling us we did not qualify as “Really French.”

        Based primarily around Chomsky’s theory of a mental grammar, constructed through language use, and the idea of “Discourse” and “identity kits” developed by Gee, I would like to examine the ‘success’ of the French immersion program based on my personal experience and those of a few close friends. I have considered our experience with French immersion, including our abilities to speak and write in French, and use of French outside the classroom. It is clear that the French immersion program taught us to comprehend French, but when the time comes to produce our own, we find that we lack knowledge of standard French grammar, and even that francophones stigmatize our ‘dialect’ of French. As Gee (1996) notes, though our grammar is poor and our forms are not ‘correct,’ we can communicate with other French immersion students quite well.

        The isolated nature of our French, learned in the same classes, with the same teachers, and used only within those classes, means that by and large every French immersion student from Summerside, PEI, constructed a roughly identical mental grammar. As discussed in class on September 22nd, the basic idea of the active construction of mental grammar theory claims that experience with language allows us to discern its rules and attempt to apply them on our own. In a language rich environment, with a variety of input, properly learning a language happens quickly and easily. Sadly, the French immersion program, in the areas of Canada devoid of French culture, is anything but linguistically rich. The only source of ‘correct’ French comes from our instructors, and the majority of the experience we get with French comes from other students struggling to learn the language alongside us. With such limited opportunities to truly learn and internalize the standard grammar of the language, no linguist would be surprised that francophones see our French as alarmingly poor.

        Despite our severe lack of standard French grammar, anglophone students in the French immersion program understand spoken and written French quite well. Obviously, we do know French, but we have learned to speak a different dialect of French – that of an anglophone French immersion student. Much like the women in the job interviews cited by Gee (1996), our dialect works fine in certain contexts, but in the context of interacting with a francophone, we are stigmatized for not matching the accepted standard. The “Discourse,” or identity, that comes with our spoken French is that of an anglophone failing to learn the ‘correct’ way of speaking and writing French. In the act of “doing being-or-becoming-Really-French,” francophones pass the decision that we are incapable of joining them as Really French. The federal government would accept our French for a bilingual position, but we would struggle to live and work in Quebec as a member of a fully francophone society.

        Like the case of being a Real Indian discussed by Gee (1996), any francophone could tell from a mile away that my classmates and I are simply not Really French. The curriculum in the French immersion program tried to test us, once and for all, to determine our identity as capable French speakers. Gee (1996) recognized the fallacy of such “identity tests,” yet they pervade the French immersion program. Thanks to lack of practice, the foundation of our language skills crumbled over the years. In high school, my French instructor marvelled at our poor knowledge of basic concepts, and spent considerable time re-teaching lessons that we received years ago. When tested a few weeks later, as little as 50% qualified as a passing grade [[editor’s note: as in, students could succeed even if they only learned 50% of the material and received a grade above 50% on the tests]], and our instructor could only hope we might remember something. Much like Swain (1995) found when testing for comprehension of French, the lessons a teacher assumes they have taught are not always what the students learn. A lesson on grammar might only boil down to students writing “peux” instead of “peut” all the time and completely forgetting the rest.

        As discussed by Gee (2010), express teaching often fails to produce a perfect understanding, and compared to the tacit experience of first learning a language the strategy faces many difficulties. Francophones, who learned the complex rules of the language as children, understand implicitly the rules and conventions of the language. “This is French,” they say, “this is how it has to be.” For an anglophone, these rules require memorization and active correction of our French any time we speak or write. When we forget to use any number of these rules, we do not realize that we are expressing something the ‘wrong’ way, because the rules are not yet a part of our basic understanding of the language. Only when they permanently become a part of our mental grammar will we take them as a given and apply them automatically, and supporters of the innateness hypothesis might argue that our critical period ended long ago. Following that theory, our French may never fully develop.

        The ‘success’ of the French immersion program, at least in an area with small French populations like Prince Edward Island, depends on how you measure success in learning a language. If success means landing a bilingual position, then the program succeeds beautifully. For a number of reasons, perfect integration into francophone society may be unrealistic, but knowledge of the standard grammar should serve as a realistic measurement. Even in that respect, the program’s success is questionable. Dedicated students can easily continue their education in French and practice their grammar using what the French immersion program taught them, but when your high school diploma comes with a certificate identifying you as fully bilingual, no extra education should be needed.

References:

        Fox, J. (2010). Lecture given September 22nd, 2010.

        Gee, J.P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses (pp. 122-132). London: The Falmer Press.

        Gee, J. P. (2010). Language, Literacy & Learning in a Digital Age. Given January 22nd, 2010. Online at: http://www2.carleton.ca/slals/events/language-literacy-learning-in-a-digital-age/

        Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhoffer (Eds.), Principle & practice in applied linguistics: studies in honour of H. G. Widdowson (pp. 126-142). Oxford: Oxford University Press.ess