The Decibel - The class and cultural divides from French immersion

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

French immersion has become a cornerstone in Canadian education. One in 10 Canadian students are now enrolled in the program, as numbers doubled through the 1990s. But it has also inadvertently created a cultural and class divide – with some parents and students feeling like they’re getting left behind.Caroline Alphonso, The Globe’s education reporter, is the parent of two French immersion students and has reported on how the language program is dividing schools, why it exists and how parental power is shaping bilingual education in Canada.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Kids in English Canada have learned French in school for decades, many of them through French immersion. In fact, according to StatsCan, almost 10% of kids in public schools are now in the program, which frontloads learning and communication in French. But there are some problems that are leading to serious questions over what counts as equity in education. Caroline Alfonso is The Globe's education reporter, and she'll help us understand how French immersion can inadvertently create class and cultural divides in schools. I'm Menaka Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Caroline, merci de te joindre à moi aujourd'hui. Oh my God, Madiko.

Don't worry, we are doing this in English. I thought I would throw some in there just because we are talking about French. We are talking about French immersion. Yeah, and I know, I don't think you speak French, but I know your kids actually go to French immersion, right? That's right. I have two kids in the public school system in Toronto, and both of them are enrolled in French immersion. So I come to this topic with a bit of parent experience. And so tell me then, like, why did you decide to put your kids in French immersion? I was born in India, and I lived in India for 12 years of my life. In school, we spoke English, but we also spoke Marathi. So I learned multiple

languages when I was in school. So I really, I enjoyed that experience. And so when French was offered in our school, I love the idea of my kids learning a second language, especially one that is predominant in Canada. And honestly, it's been a really great experience for them. They've had some wonderful teachers along the way. And you know what they say about kids being like sponges? I feel like my kids have just absorbed this language. And my eldest is, of course, he's 12 turning 13. So he's more fluent in it.

Even my youngest, sometimes she'll say things in response to me and it'll be in French. And I'll be like, pardon, what did you just say? Wow, that's really wonderful to hear. And maybe before we get too far into this, maybe we should just quickly kind of define French Immersion Carolina, because this is not a French school. So what exactly is the French Immersion program? French Immersion is exactly what it sounds like. You're immersed in French, you're immersed in language. So it is a specialized program or a program of choice within the English public education system. And what happens is that in the early grades, kids are immersed in it. So they're spoken to in French 100% of the time, sometimes a bit less,

depending on your school board. But generally, you're immersed in French for the majority of the day. And as you go through the grades higher and higher, they tend to do half French, half English. So you're immersed in French early on, and then it sort of becomes half and half as you go higher on in the grades. So now that we have that kind of lay down there, I want to ask you about a school in the east end of Toronto. This is Blake Street Junior Public School, and it has a French immersion program, but it didn't always have a French immersion program. So Caroline, can you tell me about this school here? Sure. Blake School is, like you said, in the east end of Toronto. That school used to be an English-only population. And a lot of parents in the neighborhood that wanted French immersion for

their kids, they went to other schools. And there's a lot of chatter as to why that happened. And one of the reasons is they did not want their kids in a school that had low scores, for example, because it had a huge English population. And then Blake, enrollment was declining. There were plans probably to shutter the school just because of low enrollment and maybe the kids would be sent elsewhere. The TDSB put French immersion in the school. And all of a sudden, you saw the population balloon at Blake. All the parents who had their kids scattered across French immersion programs in other schools started sending their kids to the neighborhood school, which is Blake.

And this was in 2014, I believe. So about 10 years ago. Okay. And what you saw happen as a result is the population at Blake changed. So now you saw more parents who had a higher socioeconomic demographic. So that's what happened at Blake. And Blake is an interesting example because it was a model school. Like TDSB has a set of criteria that it looks at, which includes parents' income, parents' education, sort of a whole bunch of factors. And they determine where a school ranks to receive extra funding, extra supports. And they call those schools model schools.

And TDSB is the Toronto District School Board. That's right. Which is a board-wide thing. That's right. So Blake was considered a model school for the longest time, which meant it received extra funding to support its kids. The model school program has free field trips, different programming enter the school, a whole bunch of things. Sometimes food supports too, right?

Food supports, exactly. And what has happened over the years as Blake has this French immersion program in the school is its model school status has now disappeared. Okay, so let's talk about this. So it sounds like French immersion comes into the school, a lot of parents say, okay, great, we can send our kids here to get French immersion, the demographics of the school change, and then it loses its status here as this model school. So why is that so significant? Because we have to remember that despite the fact that French immersion has brought a different population into the school, the English program still has the same demographic,

the same population that it did many, many years ago. And those students still need the support, whether it's food programs or free field trips. That's still there. And that is why it's significant. Okay. So it sounds like in a way, and invertedly, this program kind of creates a sharper divide between more well-off kids and less privileged kids, it sounds like. That's right. And that is one of the downsides that we've seen as a result of these programs of choice entering the school system, where it creates a divide between the haves and the have-nots. And it is laid bare for us to see at Blake. Why is it that parents, maybe from more privileged families,

those kids go to a French immersion program and parents from a lower socioeconomic status don't go into a French immersion program? Why do we see that? There's a lot of chatter that I've heard out there about parents thinking that French immersion is sort of a private school within the public system. So you have a specialized program within the public system.

Many parents put their kids in French immersion because they want them to learn a second language. They understand how important French is in this country in, you know, future jobs, for example. So they put their kids in this program. But there's also these whispers that in French immersion programs, you have fewer kids with, for example, behavioral issues, special needs issues. The feeling is that they may not be able to learn a second language if they're dealing with other issues as well. So those kids, I've heard from a few parents, get told to put their kids into the English program as a result. So you have sort of a French program that's seen as a little bit more aff issues in the English program, parents may start thinking,

well, I don't want necessarily want my kids learning French, but I probably don't want my kids there either. I think there are starting to be more supports in French immersion, but that is the thinking among some parents. Yeah. Well, this is kind of exposing how this happens, maybe not intentionally, but how kids kind of get separated in this way then. Exactly. And I guess maybe another factor too is if not in every situation, but maybe if as a family, your English is your second language already, you might not be ready to jump in and throw your kid into a French immersion program, right? So maybe a lot of people who are new to Canada might not necessarily jump into that program. And I've heard that in boardrooms where they discuss French immersion, where

trustees discuss French immersion. What they're saying is that when people come into the country, they really want their children to have a stronger grasp of the English language. So they don't necessarily want to put their kids in French immersion in junior kindergarten or in grade one or grade two. Perhaps they want to wait till grade seven as an entry point. So, you know, you see a lot of immigrant kids, of newcomer kids, predominantly in the English program as well. We'll be back in a moment. We just talked about how the French immersion program in a way kind of inadvertently caused a bit of a divide at Blake and also caused Blake Jr. to lose its model school status.

Right. So food program, field trips, dental exams, too, I understand. So I guess I wonder, Caroline, how do the parents of the students in French immersion feel about all of this? I've spoken to a couple of parents at Blake, and they really want something to change. The Toronto District School Board is studying the formula that goes into supporting model schools. should look at the English program separately from the French program and perhaps get support or maybe evaluate both programs and see if there's still a need in the English program and provide supports there. So there's parents at Blake that are really looking for equity for the kids who still need it, who still need those supports. What about the parents of kids who are in the English stream? What do they have to say?

I think there's been some tensions at Blake. I think ever since the French program came in, the stripping of resources this year, as it lost its model school status, I think there are parents who are wondering sort of what gives. Is the TDSB going to reevaluate my children and our status and bring those resources back? So I think it's resulted in a bit of tension at Blake. Yeah. Okay, so we've been focusing on this one school in Toronto, but I know this must be a problem throughout the country, though, as well, Caroline. And I know you were looking at French immersion in New Brunswick specifically. What happened there? The government of New Brunswick was looking to basically eliminate the French immersion program in its schools. And instead, what would happen is in the early years, kids would spend half their day learning French and half their day learning English. This would be all kids as opposed to just a small number of kids that were learning French immersion. Because the premier and the education minister said that they wanted kids to graduate from school with a conversational level of French, all kids to

graduate from school with a conversational level of French. So they felt like to bring about equity so that everybody had exposure to the language, it meant eliminating the French immersion program and exposing all kids equally to French language. And this, I would imagine, is a particular concern in New Brunswick, because this is the only bilingual province, right? So I guess that's maybe front and center there. Exactly. And so what's interesting there is that parents were livid. French immersion parents were livid at this. And so when the government decided to do its town halls, whether it was in person or virtual, and I listened to one of the virtual town halls, the parents that lined up to talk about how French immersion had impacted them when they were in school, how their children had benefited for it, one after the other. They did not feel that eliminating French immersion, eliminating a

program was the correct way to go for this government. So it sounds like in that situation, parents really kind of, I mean, I guess exerted some influence here on the public system. It just shows to me, Manika, the power that parents have over the public education system to watch these parents line up, to tell their stories, and to force the government to change its mind. In the end, the government decided, okay, fine, we will let you have your French immersion program, and we will review French language education in the province. So it really does show the power that parents exert in a situation like this to save a program that they feel is beneficial to their children. I also want to ask you about Edmonton, because I know we were looking at the city too. So further west now, how is bilingual education being approached in that city? I love speaking to parents in Edmonton. It was

fascinating. So at Edmonton Public Schools, they don't only have French immersion, they have a wide variety of programs. So you have, you know, Mandarin, Hebrew, Spanish, you name it. And so I just, I wanted to understand really how parents brought those programs about. I spoke to a parent in Edmonton who was telling me that she grew up in the Mandarin bilingual program in Edmonton and she wanted the same thing for her children. And the reason that Edmonton Public School Board has brought about so many languages is because parents, just like New Brunswick, in Edmonton, parents have been going up to the board and saying, you know, we speak this language at home. We think it's important for our children to learn it. We understand that French immersion is important, but there are other languages, especially in our city and in this country. And Edmonton Public Board has initiated a number of languages in its school where kids spend half their day or more than half their day learning a second language and then the other half of the day learning English. Wow, that's amazing. So this approach is kind of addressing really the wide swath of offerings here that people want. Exactly. And as, you know, as the country changes,

as we have more languages, it's interesting to me from my perspective, sort of what happens to language education in school boards. Yes, French immersion is still the predominant language that parents want. I mean, even at Edmonton Public School Board, you know, one of the staff members was telling me that the most calls they receive is around French immersion. People still have questions about French immersion. But it's interesting to me to see the number of languages that kids are being exposed to now, which really makes me wonder about what happens with French immersion going forward as other languages come to the forefront. And I mean, you were looking specifically at Edmonton here, but I would

imagine this is probably the case throughout the country, right, where you have parents and families who would like other instruction in other languages other than French and English. It is. I mean, in Winnipeg, there's more languages being taught in their school division as interest grows. I mean, they just started a new language there where they had an enrollment of fewer than 15, but they want to see if it takes off because there was parent interest in a new language. So I think we're going to see more and more school boards offering different languages as the years go on. Yeah. And I mean, I guess this comes down to kind of familial languages too, but there's also, you know, it sounds like at least there's a lot of benefits to kids learning another language at that stage in life, right? It is. Like look at my kids,

little sponges. So there's clearly a benefit that if you expose kids early, the science, the research shows that if you expose kids early to a language in their early years, they're better able to absorb it. We've talked about a lot of stuff here, but I think really it comes down to the idea of equitable education, right? And giving kids in all different situations access to good education. So I guess based on the people you've spoken with, again, big question, but what should equitable education look like going forward? And specifically, how would French immersion really fit into that? There's a struggle for school boards in wanting to expose kids to programming and languages. I'll go back to the Toronto District School Board, which has opened up new French immersion programs in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods like Thorncliffe Park.

So I think there are efforts being made to expose kids for the sake of equity, to expose kids to languages. that when we put a French immersion program in a school and kids are coming from various parts of the city into that program, we shouldn't forget about the kids at the school who were there before who need a helping hand. Caroline, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms.

Jay Coburn produced and edited this episode Our producers are Madeline White Cheryl Sutherland and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin David Crosby edits the show Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor Thanks so much for listening

and I'll talk to you tomorrow