French Immersion - comments please
Jan 31st 2013, 4:18 am
#76
Just Joined
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 21
Re: French Immersion - comments please
We moved to Ontario last year end of March and our daughters then 6 (year 1) started on the French immersion program in the local Catholic school it's the best move we could have made for them. In fact it was one of our top 10 reasons for coming to Canada.
The advantages a second language gives are enormous, in Canada and Europe. From a work perspective the recruiter view is that a bi-lingual person can earn 20-40% more and they have more opportunities for employment in most white-collar working enviroments. My sister, BIL and nieces lived in Spain for 6 years and have just returned to the UK. Both are about to take GSCE's in Spanish - the youngest is 12 (they moved to Spain when she was 5) and she just got 100% in her mock exam
We are lucky enough to have a great teacher, great school and two very bright little girls who have caught up with their classmates who started FI in JK within 10 months.
We did have a meeting with the Principal, Head of the French language programme and their teacher at the outset and set parameters for how we would judge whether they would be able to catch up, measure progress and if they were struggling how they would transfer to the English programme. This really helped us as non-French parents with knowing what we needed to do to help them.
They now regularly switch in and out of French and English and we have been learning French ourselves just to keep up and make sure they're not up to mischief!!
Go for it, it's much harder to get them into the programme than it is to get them out if you feel it's not for them. Good luck with your move
The advantages a second language gives are enormous, in Canada and Europe. From a work perspective the recruiter view is that a bi-lingual person can earn 20-40% more and they have more opportunities for employment in most white-collar working enviroments. My sister, BIL and nieces lived in Spain for 6 years and have just returned to the UK. Both are about to take GSCE's in Spanish - the youngest is 12 (they moved to Spain when she was 5) and she just got 100% in her mock exam
We are lucky enough to have a great teacher, great school and two very bright little girls who have caught up with their classmates who started FI in JK within 10 months.
We did have a meeting with the Principal, Head of the French language programme and their teacher at the outset and set parameters for how we would judge whether they would be able to catch up, measure progress and if they were struggling how they would transfer to the English programme. This really helped us as non-French parents with knowing what we needed to do to help them.
They now regularly switch in and out of French and English and we have been learning French ourselves just to keep up and make sure they're not up to mischief!!
Go for it, it's much harder to get them into the programme than it is to get them out if you feel it's not for them. Good luck with your move
