Maplease

Hi everyone,

We are in the process of moving to the Enfield/Elmsdale area of Nova Scotia and are looking into which school to send our 5 year old son to. It appears to me from their websites that the school in Elmsdale offers French immersion and the one in Enfield does not. My son is relatively bright and very much a kinestetic learner, at the moment. I would appreciate advice on how anyone has found the french immersion or whether I am thinking too much about this and shouldn't let it form my opinion of which school he goes to. it may be worth mentioning that we would be of little support to him (I fell asleep in my French exam!)

Thanks in advance.

If anyone has any other experience of either of these schools specifically, would love to hear that too.

Thanks again,

Maplease

Jo&Alex

Hi there.

Our daughter has been in a French Immersion school since SK. We went to France when she was 7 (after two years of French Immersion) and were absolutely amazed by her French. She was able to get around easily and translate for us (even though OH supposedly speaks French). Same thing every time we go to Quebec.

Interestingly her school always has the highest scores in the city in the provincial ENGLISH test as well. I've come to think that the French Immersion provides sort of a selection process, where kids that can't keep up are transferred to an all English school by their parents, who assume that it's because of the French that their kids are lagging behind.

So far we have not needed to help her with homework. Now in 3rd grade her French is well beyond OH's level, so even if we wanted we couldn't help... What we did thought, was finding a French babysitter (teenager neighbour who goes to French school), in case we ever needed help. There is also a homework club available in town, but we have never used it.

Overall I would definitely suggest to go for the French Immersion. The way I see it, it's an extra skill we are giving our kids, and they don't even notice it. We would never consider anything else for our youngest who begins school next year.

Oakvillian

I mostly agree with Jo&Alex. We're in Ontario, so there'll be some differences between here and NS, but I think the basic principles are the same.

FI is not supposed to be an academically selective program. However, as a kindergarten teacher here put it to us, "the natural tendency is for the kids who relish the academic challenge to gravitate towards the FI program, while those for whom it would be too much of a stretch tend to stay in the English track." That is absolutely not to say that there are no smart kids in the English program - or vice versa! But in our experience (eldest is in Grade 4 FI) the program does provide an added dimension to the learning which can help to provoke interest, thought and understanding to both the subjects taught in French and those in English.

IME the teaching staff, at least in my kids' schools, have been very good at picking up the learning traits of the children in their charge. There are resources available to support visual and auditory learners as well as kinaesthetes. For example, the emphasis on presenting project work back to the whole class is great for the latter, as they get to "do" the work twice (once to prepare and once to present) as well as helping the visual guys by preparing great project artboards and the auditory types by listening to what everyone presents.

I should add, though, that I have nothing against which to compare this. My kids started school here, going through the English-track kindergarten (FI isn't offered here until Grade 1) and then entering the Immersion program. Plus, of course, they're my kids, so I'm bound to be biased in their favour

jericho

We're in Grand Lake, about 2 mins down the road from you. Our girls (5&7) are both in french immersion, but their school is in Fall River (I wasnt aware there were any FI in Elmsdale but maybe that's changed)

Both girls settled in to it really well, and picked it up very quickly, despite neither me or my wife being French speakers (I did well at GCSE level, but that was 17 years ago )

Hope this helps, but if you have any questions about the school, or the area in general, I'd be happy to help.

Good luck!

Maplease

Thank you for taking the time to respond. Very helpful comments and certainly food for thought. Looks like most people see it as a postive, which is what I was anticipated:

Thanks again.

JonboyE

Around here FI schools are seen as de facto grammar schools. In the competitive sport of parenting, getting sprog into a French Immersion school is considered a VERY big win.

Given the choice between fighting a pissed off grizzly bear and trying to push into a lineup of parents waiting to register their kid in a French Immersion school it's, "hello furry," every time. (Yes, they do line up. Some will camp out overnight on the street to make sure they are first.)

I am not qualified to say if it will benefit any particular child. I guess that if a child has the aptitude they will benefit. I also guess that a child’s actual aptitude and their parents’ assessment of that aptitude are not always consistent.

If you child has the ability to benefit then that is good. The thought of having to consort with those parents for the next eight or so years is less so.

Geordie Lass

I'm very much in the other camp on this one. Just wanted to give you another perspective.

Being honest I thought it would be too much for my child to emigrate, leave his friends, have to start in a new school and take on that amount of French. In his case I was right. It's been hard enough on him going into such a different system to England. He was in a little village school and now he's in one of 400+ pupils.

By the time we left he was pretty well established in England and he really and I mean really missed his friends at the beginning. It has taken him a lot longer to settle here than we anticipated and it's only in the last month that he has found a really nice bunch of boys who are similar to him in terms of temperament. I think if we had put him into a school where they didn't use English all the time it would have made it a lot lot harder. He is learning Italian at school and he loves that but it's only one class out of many.

I am not saying that FI is not a great thing - maybe if he had been born here and was settled we would have considered it but for us it just wasn't the right time.

Hope that helps a little.

HGerchikov

I think it very much depends on the age of the child. For a child at kindergarten or Grade 1 age then I can see definite advantages for a bright child. However an older child that may already be struggling to fit in I think would find it much harder if they had to also catch up with another language that the rest of the class are already familiar with. We were advised to steer well clear, unless we were fluent in french ourselves (not) or prepared to spend twice as long helping our kids with their homework, but one of ours was Grade 4. My younger one (who was 5 when we came) would probably have enjoyed it.

Oakvillian

Geordie Lass raises a really good point. I think we would have considered very carefully the benefits of putting an "already-schooled" child into French Immersion, against the challenges and risks that they would have difficulty joining in the conversations in class with kids who are already familiar with receiving instruction in French.

For the OP, with a 5-year-old, I don't think this is a significant issue. I don't know how many, if any, kindergarten years are involved in the FI program in the school district they're moving to. If the child is 5 now, presumably he'll be in a senior-kindergarten class this year and moving into Grade 1 next September. I wouldn't have thought there'd be that much difficulty fitting in to an FI program at such an early stage.

Maplease

I appreciate all the responses. Thanks.

Geordie Lass, was wondering how old your son was when you moved? Nice to hear that he now has some nice friends and is settled

Geordie Lass

He was 6. He's 7 now. I can honestly say that was something we didn't plan for (as in massively underestimated) how homesick he would get and how much he would miss his old school and his old friends. He's fine now and he's happy again which is great but like I said it took a lot longer than we thought it would and if you are anything like me - seeing your child unhappy makes you unhappy

Shard

Do the FI schools do every class in French or just a majority of classes?

I wonder about the age comments, there are plenty of expats who ship over to France or Italy and stick older kids into the local school, and the kids adapt (obviously not as seamlessly as a five year old, but they do).

Lychee

The majority, but it depends.

Here's the situation I've seen in BC (note this is specific to the schools in Richmond where I volunteered at the time):

Elementary school (K-7) French Immersion is taught almost entirely in French, as children typically only have one teacher for their entire class with exception to phys ed and music. That one teacher will only speak to them in French throughout the duration of the day.

Once into secondary school (8-12), students take 8 classes through the year and different subjects are taught by different teachers. From grade 8-10, science, social studies, and French (obviously) are taught in French. Maths, English, phys ed, electives (fine art/applied skills, etc.)

By grades 11 and 12, the general subjects get more specialized (social studies are now broken down into their proper classes like history, geography, political science, etc.), science is broken into biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, etc. All these classes are taught in English now. The only classes taught in French is the French class.

Also worth noting (again, here in BC) is that French Immersion can only be started when the kids start Kindergarten (age 5/6) "Early French Immersion" or Grade 6 (age 10/11) "Late French Immersion".

Note that children who begin French Immersion at a young age will absorb the language by osmosis as they do with anything they're given at that age. Children who begin French Immersion in Grade 6 learn it by rigorous grammar lessons - they learn the grammatical structure behind the language, etc. They've also had 6 years of practicing English - spelling, grammar, writing, etc.

When the late French Immersion students and the early French Immersion students meet up in grade 8 to start secondary school, often the early French Immersion students have the better French speaking skills, but they're behind the late French Immersion students in writing/grammar and spelling in both English and French. However, by the end of grade 12, both late and early French Immersion graduate the same level.

Maplease

Once again, thanks. I appreciate getting all perspectives. I think I have a some pondering to do

jericho

All the classes are taught in French, but there's lots of repetition and sight words up on the board. Hardly any of the kids speak French as a their first language, and the teachers know this. Of course, English words are still used, but they are slowly phased out in Grade 1, so that eventually, the kids speak only French in the classroom. My eldest is in her second year of FI now, and they're only now starting to phase out English words.

Another thing to consider is that you cannot decide to put your child in FI *next* year- it's almost now or never. They do offer "late French immersion" but I dont think that's available until Grade 6.... at which time, it's much more difficult (but obv not impossible) to pick up.
You can however decide to take your child out of FI if it's not working.

Both my girls have really prospered in FI. For my eldest in particular, her reading (in both languages) is way above her age level, and I'm glad we made the decision to put them in.