I have no kids, so I don't know what the big fuss with French immersion is, why do so many parents seek this out?

Especially in BC where French isn't spoken much, and seems one of the several Asian languages would be more useful for the younger generation.

Just curious, are French immersion schools other then French aspect actually a better education?

It helps for getting government jobs I think.

watching the Edmonton news the other night I was surprsed to learn there was a Chinese immersion school there.

We want our daughter to go to French immersion because due to the pushy UK education system we will arrive when she's 6 and in BC she will be starting first grade with kids who've just finished kindergarten but in UK she will have already done 2 full years at school as well as preschool (kindergarten equivalent). I think any teacher would struggle if she was bored as she would seriously play up. Getting her into French immersion will keep her occupied.
Can't speak for anyone else though.

There is a perception amongst a certain type of competitive parent that somehow French immersion is better. There may be some truth in this - I don't know - but learning in two languages may suit a brighter child so it becomes a high achieving stream. I suspect it is more that the kind of parent who will camp out overnight to be first in line to sign up their offspring for the French immersion stream is the kind of parent who will make sure their kids do all their homework, and more.

For some government jobs, being bi-lingual is a requirement, so I could see how it helps there, however, I believe it starts at an age where I doubt the child knows what they truly wish to do with their lives, so is it really something they need to do? I think not.

I think it's parents either wanting what they think is best for their child, or simply wanting to be able to say "My child is in FI" with the unsaid, but obvious subtext of "So they must / are, better than your child who is not in FI", and the latter is likely more than the former.

I wouldn't mind if my lad learnt french, I did at secondary school and for the first year I loved it, and I'm sure he would be ok with it. I'd certainly not force him to do it though. I'm not sure I'd want him in FI. I think too much pressure is put on kids anyway, let them be kids!
I severely dislike homework, and not being particularly good (now) at French, how would I best help out a child who is in FI and has french homework (I cannot think of much worse to be honest. Homework isn't something I agree with, unless you are in College or University. I see no reason to give kids homework, let them enjoy being out of school, rather than having to continue it)

I can't see the harm in learning any language . I wish I remembered more of my school French.

Young is definitely easier when it comes to picking them up

I'm an FI cynic but have hypocritically ended up applying. Kid has decided she wants to try for it. She loves her current school, but wants a bit more challenge, and her good friends are applying too. Not really bothered if she gets in or not. She seems excited about the possibility. I'm actually really surprised to be in this position because we, as parents, had decided no. However, she's old enough to have an opinion. I guess.

Not a big fan of FI myself. My wife has commented that within the Brownie Troop she helps run, the FI kids' command of written English is way behind the kids who go to the regular elementary school.

I get the feeling here in Calgary that sometimes parents seek out the FI, or German, Chinese or Spanish Bilingual programs because the regular program school closest to their house is chock full to capacity and the class sizes are smaller at the language-based programs (although I know that's not the case for all of the schools). Sometimes a language program in your neighbourhood is better than having your kid on the bus an hour each way I guess.

I ummed and ahh'ed as we had a Spanish bilingual open up in our community last year - the bilingual program is not quite as intense as immersion (just Math, Spanish and something else in Spanish I believe), but in the end we went with the regular program as I felt that there will be plenty of opportunity later on for my daughter to do languages, and there is also French late immersion if she really wanted to do that too. The other factor was not knowing Spanish and not being able to help with homework (although they do say that parents don't need to know the language but I expect it helps a lot).

I "hear" late FI is supposed to be better because the kids already have a good grounding in english.

Thanks. As I said just curious and not having kids, I am not in the know when it comes to this sort of thing...

When I was a kid, it was attempted to teach me Spanish since it's the most useful language to know aside from English in So. California, but it went horribly bad, and I ended up getting way behind in English...

My GF on the other hand, can pick up languages like picking up candy off the ground. Immerse her in a language and she picks it up no issue.

Her mom speaks German and English and her grand parents only spoke German, and she spent summers in Austria with them so she is mostly fluent still although since she no longer uses it, she has lost some ability.

She also speaks Portuguese, self taught simply by spending a year there in high school, buy again doesn't use it, so not fluent.

I can speak about 20 works of Spanish.....

My daughter attends an Elementary school that runs a Mandarin programme here in Coquitlam. There are two classes in each grade that are taught half days in each language. There is a lottery for places but we were too late to apply.

As your kid has decided she want's to try it, that's a good thing. It's parents that push their kids into it because they think it is what is best for them, possibly based on the grounds of either "I did this and turned out ok" or "I didn't do this, so I'm going to make sure my child does"

I'd much rather he have a solid grounding in English before moving on to another language. Late immersion sounds like a better plan, partly as he can make the decision too.

Having been educated in French in Canada made a huge difference to the lives of two of my children and did no harm to the third. One now works in a francophone country, the CAR, she works in Italian but the school system isn't to blame for that. She's of particular value to her organisation because she speaks French. Possibly she was able to quickly learn Italian because she already spoke French and English.

The second lives in Vancouver where she has a government job due, in part, to speaking French. Her language skills allowed her to be on two "mooting" teams for her university which, she said, was advantageous so the benefit went beyond just "the feds will hire you if you speak both languages".

It worked for them, YMMV.

Oh, I agree. If she wasn't interested we wouldn't be doing it, but I think her interest guarantees that she'll take responsibility for the learning if she does move to FI. I'm still quite surprised she's applying tbh.

re: pushy parents/early FI, It's tricky. I used to be a lot more judgemental about parents doing that but a few years in it has backfired on some of them. And, at least here in BC, it's not the guarantee of avoiding SN kids like it used to be - which was a pull for a lot of parents, along with the lack of ESL kids (they hoped). I'm still not convinced it (doing FI) REALLY matters. For every success story like DBD's, I can find examples in my own life of people who went through FI and it has made no discernible difference in their lives. It's all a crapshoot really, depending on what kid you get.