Very true. I was in a Latin scholar's program before my family took me off to France, to a small village where hardly anybody spoke English. That was immersion. Some of the school teachers spoke English, but they would not speak English with me as I struggled to understand the lessons. Our neighbor was a prof of linguistics, with two small children, and she encouraged me to talk with them-they did not laugh at my efforts to speak French. I found that comprehension was the key. Everyday when I came home from school I would listen and tape the proceedings of the National Assembly. When I heard a word that I did not know, I would look at its meaning using the international phonetic symbols in my Larousse. Grammar and structure followed, helped enormously by my Latin schooling., After only about six weeks I dozed off while reading, then awoke with a start-I had started to dream and think in French. Soon I was speaking the argot of my schoolmates.

+1

I've met some of them.

One of my friends has a small business tutoring ex-FI students in english essay writing skills.

As for brain development, the research shows it's bilingualism from birth to age 5 that's what's really useful, not age 5 on. Just sayin'

I always get a bit suspicious when folk make claims as to what "the research" says without providing a reference to the research.

can't be arsed finding it.

because it's a tonal language, right? However, wouldn't learning it from kidhood make that easier?

Hmm, seems like math/science is taught in french in grade 8 if you are an FI student at local high school. That puts me off tbh.

Also, only the english stream has advanced math/science at grade 8. 1 point to English!

I just called Shaw tech support, and the initial answer is in English and then some Asian language (mandarin I assume?) didn't get the option to choose French though.

First time I've experienced this when calling a company.

oooh the language police won't like that. bwa ahhahahaha.

Lucky we don't have that in BC.....


The supreme court even ruled you can't table court documents in French only, I think some minority language group had tried to do it and refused to translate into English which BC required.

Supreme Court rules against tabling French-only court documents in B.C. - Macleans.ca

I think the distinction between the East and West coasts is important when considering FI. For me, the ability to speak French or not hasn't raised its head ever in all the time I've lived here. If I lived in the parts of the East that speak French, I'm sure I would have a very different experience. I just don't see the point in being educated in what to me, or my kids, would be a foreign language. There seems to be plenty to challenge them educationally without adding another complication.

This. But I'm curious and ask if you still are bilingual? I suspect you must be.

Well there you are. It's just that my (anecdotal) experience is contrary. My two sons were 2 and 5 when we moved to Germany. The one who has become truly bilingual, and incidentally, intellectually more advanced, is the then 5 year old.

He's also pretty fluent in French (which he self taught while at university studying an unrelated subject).

He's pretty shit at Cantonese though.

Odd. This wasn't the case with SD38 (Richmond). Maths was taught in English from 8-12. Electives (drama, music, art, home economics, etc.), Phys Ed, and English literature/language (obviously) taught in English. Sciences Humaines (social studies) and Sciences Naturels (Science) were taught in French from 8-10... possibly even until grade 11. Only Français langue (French language) gets taught in French (obviously) until grade 12.

I wonder if it varies from school district to school district? This chart shows that as the students progress through high school, French instruction decreases:

French Immersion Program - Public Schools

agreed. I like Richmond's model better, it makes more sense to me.

Moscrop Secondary | French Immersion

very true, and may explain why the FI students I know haven't necessarily made use of it and why DBd's kids did.