More French Opportunities for All
Re “How French immersion inadvertently created class and cultural divides at schools across Canada”
By Derrek Bentley, National President, Canadian Parents for French
As the largest non-francophone organization that promotes the French language in Canada, Canadian Parents for French (CPF) is troubled by the article published on October 16. While it states some known challenges of the French immersion program, it links some of the issues to unfortunate situations in a particular location and contributes to common misperceptions that the program has known from its early days.
Throughout our more than 45 years of history, we have seen French immersion enrolment grow from a few classrooms in St.-Lambert, QC to nearly 500,000 enrolled students across the country. We have witnessed French as a second language (FSL) education becoming an educational cornerstone among Canadians: 1.7 million students were enrolled in a FSL program in the 2020–2021 school year. And the parental demand continues to grow!
We believe in a Canada where everyone can be bilingual in our official languages, this is not at the detriment of learning or speaking other languages. Learning French shouldn’t replace or be replaced with learning a different language, they are not mutually exclusive. Research clearly demonstrates that learners can add another language at no cost to their first language competence because languages are interdependent: the skills developed in one language are used in the other and vice versa. Which is often why, as stated in the article, newcomers to Canada choose to enrol their children in French immersion. As an example of this, we invite readers to view winning submissions of the 2023 CPF French public speaking contest, among some of the winners are Dhruv Mehta of British Columbia, Kanto Ratsimandresy of Newfoundland and Labrador, Sunny Wu of Ontario and Asem Khattab of Nova Scotia, all of which have a first language other than French or English.
The 2021 Census states children enrolled in a French immersion program were more likely to be second-generation Canadians and part of a visible minority group. And as the Commissioner of Official Languages states, “Across Canada, French immersion is popular with immigrant parents, and the statistics show that their children born in Canada, and that children whose mother tongue is a non-official language, are just as likely to be English-French bilingual as non-immigrant youth from the majority communities, if not more so.”
In Canada outside Quebec, approximately three in five people (60.8%) who attended a French-language school or a French immersion program could have a conversation in both official languages. As advocates of universal access to quality FSL programs, CPF agrees, French immersion supply needs to catch up with demand to ensure all students have access to this effective program. Earlier this year, the modernized Official Languages Act, recognized for the first time in law the importance of learning a second official language. We remain optimistic that this will help guarantee that all Canadians can do so.
Instead of calling supply and demand issues as divisive and elitist, let’s make a call to governments across the country to ensure equitable access and delivery of FSL programs. Let’s also make better promotion of this program by presenting facts to ensure a diverse student enrolment. Let’s support research focused on immigrant families’ language behaviour and of their school-aged children in particular, as an avenue to better understand the linguistic integration mechanisms that may be strengthened in Canada.
Official languages bilingualism is supported by an overwhelming majority of Canadians. These are the languages we have in common with each other as 98% of multilingual households speak an official language. Our official languages foster mutual understanding among many communities throughout the country and help create bonds between all Canadians, regardless of their background. Besides the benefits of learning a new language, learning French contributes to Canadian society while acknowledging our history and culture; as such, everyone in Canada should have this opportunity.