Transcript Canadian French Immersion

Canadian Bilingual Education
Implications for
English Language
Learning in China
Presentation by Dr. Ed Nicholson
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Les Francophones au Canada
Percentage of Students Enrolled in
French Immersion Classes in Canada.
Province
Newfoundland
P. E. I.
Nova Scotia
New Br unswick
Quebec
Ontario
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Alberta
British Columbia
% enrolled in
French
Immersion
Ea rly Immersion as
% of total F.I.
Students
Girls as % of Total
F.I. S tudents
7
20
57
59
64
58
12
32
22
6
6
3
4
2
21
39
74
57
90
87
80
55
58
61
52
64
60
65
59
61
Some Facts About French
Immersion in Canada
 French immersion programs were widely introduced into
Canadian schools in the 1970s to encourage bilingualism
across the country.
 There are early (k-1) middle (3-5) and late (6+) immersion
programs.
 There are more girls than boys in F.I. in all provinces of
Canada.
 F.I. students perform significantly better than other students
in English tests of reading (Allen, 2004)
 French immersion students tend to have higher socioeconomic status backgrounds
Source: Statistics Canada & CPF
What has been achieved in Canadian
French Immersion?





86% of parents support FSL instruction
75% of English parents want their children to learn French
90% of French parents want their children to learn English
The FI program in Canada is now 40 years old.
Statistics Canada reports that in the 2002-03 school year,
nearly 2 million students took courses in French as a
second language: (French immersion 357,000 ; Core
French 1,570,000 students)
SOURCE:
Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers
What has been achieved in
Canadian French Immersion?
 From 1981 to 1996 bilingualism has increased by 100%
in four provinces and more than 50% in the remaining six.
 In Quebec- 34% of French speakers are bilingual
 In Quebec-from 37% of English speakers in 1971
increased to 63% in 1996
 55% of Anglophones who live in provinces other than
Quebec think it is important that their children learn French.
 24% of high school graduates have working knowledge of
second official language
 97% of French-speaking Quebecers feel it is important
that children in Quebec learn English.
What does the research say
about French Immersion?



“Immersion students do as well in English language
skills as students entirely educated in English
Immersion students do as well in subject matter as
students who are educated in English
Immersion students acquire a great deal of the
second language. Canadian immersion students
easily out-perform students enrolled in traditional
French classes (core French) and, after several
years of immersion, approach native speakers of
French on some measures.” Cummins, (1987)
What about the sociological effects of
French immersion?
 Social and psychological findings on French
immersion (Edwards & Smyth, 1976; Lambert &
Tucker, 1972) suggest French immersion students
are satisfied with their programs, feel confident to
speak French, and see less social distance between
themselves and French Canadians.


They also tend to be far less “xenoglossophobic”
They have higher socioeconomic status, resulting
in the program being challenged by some social
agencies as being ‘elitist’ (Olson & Burns, 1983)
Are their other benefits to bilingualism?

“Sharing a common language has a large and
significant effect on trade intensity. Two countries
sharing a common language are estimated to
have two-way trade flows more than 1.7 times as
large as those between two otherwise similar
countries. Helliwell (1999)
o
In a bilingual culture, languages cross-pollinate
each other, with words, grammar, and
assumptions. This enriches each language and
helps those living near both gain an appreciation
of the others' culture.
Sommer (2001)
Two reasons why I support F.I.
Quinn
Kael
Quinn Nicholson & Zhang Yi
Is knowledge of the Canadian immersion
experience useful to EFL in China?
Students want
more English
EFL teachers often fail to suitably
challenge L2 learners by over
relying on the mother tongue and
by aiming instruction at the
“average” student in the classroom.
Increasingly, at Guangdong
University of Foreign Studies, it is
the students -even our non-English
majors- who complain about “too
much Chinese!” being used in
English class by the teacher!
Immersion programs may be one
way to address the expectations of
some students.
Students want
more challenge
Krashen (1987) believes that we
acquire language by using what we
know coupled with new information,
an idea he refers to as his
input hypothesis.
Language which contains only
structures that we already know does
not aid in acquisition. This is just i.
Acquisition is a result of
“ i + 1” , or current knowledge plus
input just a bit beyond
that. Therefore comprehensible input
is a key concept in L2 acquisition.
Students want
‘every day’ English
Although it is true that many - if not most - EFL
students continue to regard English as a
stepping stone to a better job, it is equally true
that these same students will be the first
generation of Chinese in large numbers to
travel widely, study overseas and work for
multi-national corporations. (China Daily, 2003)
Communicative competence in English is
therefore a skill which may be of life long
benefit - not just a language you study to pass
the CET examination and add to your C.V.
Teaching Formal and
Informal English
+
=
Two kinds of language…
The acronyms BICS and CALP refer to a distinction
introduced by Cummins (1979) between two language
types - Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills
and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency.
Other researchers have used different terms*, but the
essential distinction refers to the extent to which the
meaning is supported by contextual or interpersonal
cues ( gestures, facial expressions, and intonation) or
by linguistic cues that are independent of the
communicative context.
*See, for example, the work of Bruner [1975] on analytic and
communicative competence and Donaldson’s [1978] description of
embedded and disembedded language.
Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) Theory
Cummins (1979) uses a visual ‘iceberg’ metaphor to explain
CUP The two icebergs are separate above the surface. That is,
two languages are visibly different in outward conversation, but
underneath the surface, the two icebergs are fused such that the
two languages do not function separately. Both languages
operate through the same central processing system. Thus,
skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will
be readily transferred to the second language.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
BICS
CALP
Social Language
Academic Language
Meaningful social contexts
often with face-to-face
interaction
Concrete
Context embedded
Nonverbal cues(tone of voice,
gestures, facial expressions)
Opportunity to clarify meaning
Familiar concepts/topics
2-3 years to acquire
• Listening, speaking, reading
and writing in content areas
• Abstract
• Context reduced
• Few nonverbal cues (especially
if reading passages in texts)
• Little or no opportunity to
clarify meaning
• New ideas/concepts
• 5-7+ years to acquire
Two “types” of English?
If we generalize this research to EFL teaching,
it is arguable that the provision of both formal
and informal language learning experiences in
the classroom will be beneficial for the student.
French Immersion succeeds
because…
… if we further
generalize this idea
to the immersion
milieu, we see that
the increased social
interaction in
English in context
promotes the
development of a
common underlying
proficiency.
Why does F.I. work so well?
 Students have an
opportunity to speak
French for extended
periods of time
(duration effect)
 Students use the target
language constantly in a
variety of social contexts.
(frequency effect)
The role of memory in F.I.
Although is it self-evident that memory is crucial to
second language acquisition (Christianson,1992)
the immersion environment is particularly
supportive of three different types of memory:
 Procedural - memory developed through repetitive actions
 Semantic
- memory used for remembering concepts
and general knowledge.(rote memory)
 Episodic
- memory of an event (or story) that contains
a strong emotional connection
Contextualizing language makes
it easier to learn.
Our brain constantly monitors
the environment for additional
clues to help it understand what
is happening around it. The
more separate but associated
referent points it can establish,
the faster it will learn and
recall.
In the French immersion class,
the student is enclosed in an
environment containing a
multitude of these referents.
F.I students make many “connections”
In recent years, there has
been a move away from
teaching (Nation, 2001) and
testing (Gyllstad, 2003)
vocabulary discretely.
Instead the emphasis has
been on embedded language
where vocabulary is
presented in context.
The practice effect
This dissection of
the left hemisphere
reveals the arcuate
fasciculus, which
interconnects
Wernicke's area (an
area involved in the
interpretation of
spoken language)
with Broca's area (the
"motor speech" area
of the brain).
MRI
Composite
scan
"Knowledge needs to be pulled into the brain by the
student, not pushed into it by the teacher. Knowledge
is not to be forced on anyone. The brain has to be
receptive, malleable, and most important, hungry for
that knowledge."
Sister Agnes Patricia in "The Man Who Listens to Horses”
For more information…
Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers
http://www.caslt.org
Canadian Parents for French
http://www.cpf.ca/
http://www.french-future.org
For current research on
French immersion in Canada
http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=cmlrsplash.html
Thank you for listening!
You can contact me at:
[email protected]
References
Allen, M. (2004).Reading achievement of students in French Immersion programs.". Educational
Quarterly Review, 9 (4), p 25-30
Canadian Association of Parents for French (2004) The state of French language education in
Canada. Available at http://www.cpf.ca/english/Resources/FSL2004/2004%20Index.htm
Christianson, S.A. (1992) Handbook of emotion and memory: current research and theory.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cummins, J. (1979) Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic
interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working
Papers on Bilingualism, 19, 121-129.
Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment and
pedagogy. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Cummins, J. (1987). Immersion programs: Current issues and future directions. In
L.L. Stewin & S.J. McCann (Eds.) Contemporary educational issues: The Canadian
mosaic.Toronto: Copp Clark.
Cummins, J. (1995). Canadian French immersion programs: a comparison with
Swedish immersion programs in Finland. In M. Buss & C. Lauren (Eds.) Language
immersion: Teaching and second language acquisition. (pp. 7-20). Vaasa: University of
Vaasa Research Papers.
Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society.
Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education
References
Edwards, H.P., & Smythe, F. (1976). Evaluation of second language programs
and some alternatives for teaching French as a second language in grades five
to eight. Toronto: Ontario Education.
Guttman, M.A.J. (1983). There’s more to French immersion than social class.
Interchange, 41(1), 17–22.
Gyllstad, H. (ed.)(2003) The department of English in Lund: Working papers in
linguistics Vol. 3. Lund University
Helliwell, J.F (1999), Language and trade in Albert Breton, (ed.) Exploring the
Economics of Language, Canadian Heritage
Lapkin, S., & Swain, M. (1984). Research update. Language and Society, 12(1),
48–54.
McGaugh, James L. (2000) Memory--a century of consolidation Science, 287, p.248-251
Nation, I.S.P. 2001. Learning vocabulary in another language.Cambridge University Press.
Safty, A. (1988). French immersion and the making of a bilingual society.
Canadian Journal of Education, 13, 243–262.
Safty, A. (1990). L’efficacité. In A. Safty (Ed.), Pour un enseignement
dynamique et efficace (p.237–284). Montreal: l’Université du Québec.
Singh, R. (1986). Immersion: Problems and principles. Canadian Modern
Language Review, 42, 559–569.
Swain, M. & Lapkin, S. (1990). Additive bilingualism and French immersion
education: The roles of language proficiency and literacy. In A. Reynolds (Ed.),
Bilingualism, multiculturalism, and second language learning: NY: Erlbaum.