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Programs for English and French Education in Schools in

Alister Cumming, CERLL, OISE

Canada’s constitution in 1867 recognized, and then the Official Acts of 1969 and 1988 designated, English and French as the country’s two official languages. The constitution also gave each province, rather than the federal government, unique responsibilities for education. Accordingly, Canada’s 10 provinces and 3 territories each have unique curricula and educational policies, though each receives financial support to teach all children in public schools either French as a Second Language (FSL) or English as a Second Language (ESL). The Ministry of Education for each province provides a website detailing the most recent policies and curricula for ESL and/or FSL, which Vaillancourt, Coche, Cadieux and Ronson (2012) have analyzed comparatively. Education within each province is administered by school districts, governed by school boards that have considerable discretion in stipulating programs, resources, and hours and modes of instruction. As with all schooling in Canada, education in ESL or FSL is highly decentralized and therefore variable from place to place. ESL is taught as a school subject in French‐dominant schools in the province of Québec. FSL is taught in schools in all of the other English‐dominant provinces except for separate French school systems operating in designated bilingual regions of and Ontario. Bilingual regions of Ontario, Québec, and New Brunswick have school systems in minority‐status languages (either English or French) adhering to the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees education in their mother tongue to all Canadians of English or French heritage. Heller (1999) observed a shift over prior decades in the conceptual orientation for among francophone schools in Ontario from proclaiming a unique cultural identity and disparaging minority status to promoting French as an international language and the value of bilingualism.

Students in most Canadian schools study either ESL or FSL as a compulsory subject in core (i.e., regular) programs, for 20 to 50 minutes per day, from fourth to ninth or tenth grade, and students in academic streams may continue to do so until the end of at 12th grade. Two alternative curriculum models are also popular: immersion (constituting about 10% of FSL programs in Canada) or intensive (particularly for ESL in a small number of schools in Québec) (Cummins, 2014; Genesse & Lindholm‐Leary, 2008; Lapkin, 1998; Netton, 2000). In immersion programs, students study school subjects in their second language for most of the school day, often supplemented by some study in the majority language. Early immersion programs begin in kindergarten or first grade, middle immersion begins in fourth or fifth grade, and late immersion begins in the sixth or seventh grade. In intensive programs, students study school subjects in the second language for half a year in grades 5 or 6, offering concentrated, communicative experiences akin to immersion programs. Other innovative curriculum models include bilingual or dual‐language programs, which provide 50% of school subjects in English and in French; extended programs, in which one or two school subjects are taught in the second language, usually in senior secondary schools; and the accelerative integrated method (AIM) in which core French instruction is integrated kinaesthetically through interactive drama, reading, and writing activities (Arnott, 2011; Cummins, 2014). 2

Students relocating to (or possibly within) Canada from places where English or French is not the medium of instruction may need to participate in programs for learners (ELLs) or, in Québec, “classes d’accueil” (welcoming classes). Educational policies and conditions for these students vary greatly, reflecting the extent of immigrant settlement patterns locally: They may include reception centers (which provide initial assessments and cultural orientation upon entering a school district), ESL or FSL courses (without or for academic credit), withdrawal classes (on an individual or group basis), sheltered, content‐based instruction in school subjects, or “whole school” policies that include culturally diverse learners (Cumming, 1997; Cumming et al., 1993; Cummins & Early, 2011; Early, 2008). Generally, educational policies and practices promote minority students’ socialization into academic discourse practices in the medium of English or French and, consequently or implicitly, the long‐term assimilation of linguistic minorities into Canadian society (Ashworth, 1988; Cummins, 2000; Duff, 2010). Most immigrant students in Canadian cities fare well academically, compared to Canadian‐born populations, with the exception of subpopulations in which poverty, parental education, and limited educational services impact negatively on graduation and participation rates; educators are advised to attend uniquely to these subpopulations rather than implementing uniform policies for all language learners (Cumming, 2012; Cummins, 2014; Gunderson, 2007; Ledent et al., 2013; McAndrew, 2009; Schugurensky, Mantilla & Serrano, 2009; Toohey & Derwing, 2008).

References

Arnott, S. (2011). Exploring the dynamic relationship between the accelerative integrated method (AIM) and the core French teachers who use it: why agency and experience matter. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics 14, 156–176.

Ashworth, M. (1988). Blessed with bilingual brains: Education of immigrant children with English as a Second Language. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press.

Cumming, A. (1997). English language‐in‐education policies in Canada. In W. Eggington & H. Wren (Eds.), : Dominant English, pluralist challenges (pp. 91‐105). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Cumming, A. (Ed.) (2012). Adolescent literacies in a multicultural context. New York: Routledge.

Cumming, A., Hart, D., Corson, D., Labrie, N., & Cummins, J. (1993). Provisions and demands for ESL, ESD, and ALF education in Ontario schools. (Report submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training.) Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Bristol, UK: Multingual Matters.

Cummins, J. (2014). To what extent are Canadian second language policies evidence‐based? Reflections on the intersections of research and policy. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences, 5 (article 358), 1‐ 10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00358 3

Cummins, J., & Early, M. (Eds.). (2011). Identity texts: The collaborative creation of power in multilingual schools. London, UK: Trentham Books.

Duff, P. (2010). Language socialization into academic discourse communities. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 169‐192.

Early, M. (2008). Second and foreign language teaching in Canada. In N. V. Deusen‐Scholl, & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd ed.), Vol. 4: Second and foreign language education (pp. 198‐208). New York: Springer.

Genesse, F., & Lindholm‐Leary, K. (2008). Dual language and the USA. In J. Cummins & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, Vol. 5: (pp. 253‐ 263). New York: Springer.

Gunderson, L. (2007). English‐only instruction and immigrant students in secondary schools: A critical examination. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Heller, M. (1999). Linguistic minorities and modernity. Paramus, NJ: Prentice‐Hall.

Lapkin, S. (Ed.) (1998). French second language education in Canada: Empirical studies. Toronto: of Toronto Press.

Ledent, J., Aman, C., Garnett, B., Murdoch, J., Walters, W., & McAndrew, M. (2013). Academic performance and educational pathways of young allophones: A comparative multivariate analysis of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Canadian Studies in Population, 40 (1‐2), 35‐56.

McAndrew, M. (Ed.) (2009). Educational pathways and academic performance of youth of immigrant origin: Comparing Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Ottawa: Canadian Council on Learning. Retrieved November 20, 2014 from http://www.chereum.umontreal.ca/publications_pdf/publications_pdf/CIC‐ CCL‐Final12aout2009EN.pdf

Netton, J. (2000). Canada. In M. Byram (Ed.) Routledge encyclopedia of language teaching and learning (pp. 94‐96). London: Routledge.

Schugurensky, D., Mantilla, D., & Serrano J. (Eds.). (2009). Four in ten: Spanish‐speaking youth and early school leaving in Toronto. Toronto: Latin American Research Education and Development Network (LARED), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Toohey, K., & Derwing, T. (2008). Hidden losses: how demographics can encourage incorrect assumptions about ESL high school students’ success. Alberta Journal of Educational Research 54, 178– 193.

Vaillancourt, F., Coche, O., Cadieux, M., & Ronson, J. (2012). policies of the Canadian provinces: Costs and benefits in 2006. Vancouver: Fraser Institute. Retrieved October 20, 2014 from http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser‐ca/Content/research‐ news/research/pubTlications/official‐language‐policies‐of‐canadian‐provinces.pdf