daughter graduated fluent in french and with 3 years of spanish too! Youngest son took immersion grade 7,-10. It was full here . He's in English with french as one subject.

Oldest could not do french. He was struggling with sound-symbol association (reading and spelling). He was pulled from french early-grade 5? and spent that period practicing keyboarding. (printing/writing was hard for him too). He's now a super typist-much faster and more accurate than me!

So I think it should be available for everyone-but an opt out option-for good reasons-is needed.

IMO the norm should be that all children take a 2nd language (with some taking more).  However we do need to acknowledge that this is not feasible for some students.  But a 2nd language is something I wish I had. 

Hi crazyheart,

I think all children should learn a second language.  Why?  I think it is responsible.

I wish that my French was better.  Unfortunately it was optional and when I had the opportunity to opt out I had no idea that I would find it handy today.

Maybe since Canada is officially bi-lingual we should expect Canadians to be functionally bi-lingual.

In my studies I had to be able to read Greek and Hebrew.  I'm sure if I spoke either regularly they wouldn't be so rusty.

German and Latin would have been extremely useful languages for me as a theology student.

I have had moments where I have been approached on the street by strangers to this country who could not speak English and it is difficult to communicate.  I think I was being spoken to in Spanish or Portugese.  The best I could do was walk her to a bank which offered services in other languages.

I hope she isn't sitting in the chairs and cursing me under her breath.

It was a number of years ago.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I wish it had been available when I went to school (from grades 7 to 12 we had about two 20 minute periods a week with an anglo teacher who could barely get through the book himself).  It wasn't much better when my kids went to school.  But Granddaughter took French immersion from Grade one.  For awhile it seemed like she might be a little behind the kids in the regular program, but now in Grade 9 she has caught up.  She recently passed her compulsatory provincial English exam for high school.  She is fluently bilingual.

In this province almost every government job requires bilingual.  So do many of the business and service jobs.  Being bilingual certainly gives a person an edge.  I think it also helps if you want to learn a third or fourth language.  (A professor once told me that once you learn seven different languages, you can pick up an eighth in a snap.)

Each province is different.  In NB, Canada's only bilingual province, if I had my way every child would study the same curriculum from kindergarden to Grade 12.  Mixed classes of kids with a mother tongue of French or English in the same classes, learning half days in French, half in English.  Playing together in the playground, and on sports teams.  Debating teams - speak in the language of your choice, and your opponent answers in the language of his choice - no translators.  Music - learn to appreciate both.  Literature - the same.  I think that if this happened there would be a lot less tension, a lot less jealousy, a lot less expense.  And if someone got caught for speeding and the police officer addressed her in French, she would reply in French, and if she protested and the judge addressed her in English she would reply in English.   Of course it would require excellent bilingual teachers, and a generation to impliment but once in place, I think it would be a heck of a lot better than the system as it is now.

We tried to get our son to learn Mandarin when he was younger, but it didn't stick. More useful to him than French by far given how many of his relatives speak it and how important his mother's homeland is going to be globally during his lifetime. A second language is a valuable thing, but I'm not hung up on French, even though the closest I come to having a second language is, indeed, French. Mandarin, various South Asian languages, Spanish and Portuguese are all going to be important globally and nationally in the coming decades and, while I wouldn't necessarily drop French from our school curriculum, I also would be more than happy to see other languages accepted or offered for credit in our schools on an equal footing with it.

Mendalla

In our community French Immersion was offered for the first time when my eldest child started kindergarten.  It was knew and I was uncertain.  I did not enroll him in French Immersion but knew I would encourage him to take core French throughout his school years.  My child started taking core French in Grade 4 and continued through to the end of Grade 12 taking French.  He did very well in it.  About 4-5 years after high school he moved to Quebec for a short time.  The core French he took didn't help him at all in becoming emmersed in speaking French in Quebec.  It was not until he became friends with someone who had a young child who spoke only French that he became immersed in it as he spent a lot of time with this family.

While I do not think his core French helped him to be bi-lingual I still think it was a good thing that he took it.  I often wonder if his friends who took French Immersion now out of highschool for 15+ years can speak any French if they have not used it conversationally over the years.

My youngest brother was in an early wave of French Immersion in the seventies and eighties and I don't know that his French is all that great now. He did use it a bit on the job so probably better than mine (I just have core French, though I took it all the way to Grade 13 even though it was elective in the senior grades) but I don't think it's anywhere near fluency at this point.

Mendalla

I would have enrolled my kids in French Immersion if it had been available at the time.  A friend's child was in it and actually got a job because he spoke French.  Now, years later, he has forgotten most of it and has never needed it on the job.  I have a grandkid in French Immersion and he never uses it outside school.

Another grandchild can hold simple conversations in Spanish - there are kids at school who have Spanish as their mother tongue.  Core French is offered but it doesn't seem to be 'sticking'.

What is CORE french?

The basic one period a day French lesson as opposed to French Immersion where you get several of your regular subjects in French and the rest in English.

Mendalla

Little M could probably pick up half a dozen languages that way if he wanted to given how diverse his classes and social circles have been.

Mendalla

Little M could probably pick up half a dozen languages that way if he wanted to given how diverse his classes and social circles have been.

Mendalla

I think a second language is wonderful but with out using it a lot it disappears fast.

I was functional in French I highschool' not at all now.

My son took it through high school and one year of university but got bilingual with a girl fromParis. Interestingly, this girl called McGill about graduate school (did you know that French students pay the same as Quebec students which is less than Ontario students). And she had a terrible time understanding what was being said to her. Québécois is very different than French for France and that is generally what Ontario kids are taught.

My daughter has one university year of French after high school and both feel they can converse.

Bt it will go quickly once they dont need it.

I had two nieces do French immersion. One took it through grade 8. Never took it again, doesn't speak it at all, has totally lost it

One was told to leave in grade 3. Her mom was so intent she do French immersion that for grade 1 on she was tutoring her with an outside tutor inall her subjects . Really stupid.

Once she got back to regular classes she did fine in school. She just had no aptitude for language

Ontario is full of people who took French, never use it and can no longer speak it

There's plenty of evidence that a second language develops thinking skills and improves overall learning abilities.

I was force-taught French and Latin in school in New Zealand, learned conversational Maori by assimilation; and I 0have made a  bit of an effort to get practical Italian going. Too many people feel threatened by "foreign" languages: they're no big deal… and they do open new insights into life because different langages help their speakers "see" things in different ways.

I have good intentions to learn some Anishinaabemowin beyond "boozhoo" and "meegwitch" but I don't have access to a teacherat the moment.

As for not using it and losing it, the insights tend to stick. I have lost my Korero Maori after 30 years or so of non-use, but I feel I could probably pick it up again with a bit of re-immersion. And my Italian would improve if I could find ways to spend more time in Italy. The French and Latin are long gone but gave me a big help with spelling English. And they were interesting in retrospect if a real drudge at the time.

I'm in awe of my partner's ability to speak two languages fluently, switching from one to the other automatically...to think that just over a decade ago he hardly spoke any english. It's improved a great deal since I met him even. He spoke english when I met him, but not as well as now--I won't take credit for the work he's done to improve--but I think being around me everyday and learning expressions, idioms, and proper pronunciations has helped. I wish it were more of the other way around and I learned to speak his language (Serbo-Croatian)...it will require some hard work and focus..some 'immersion'...but being here he has to speak english mostly for work and socializing, so we've defaulted to english. If I were living in his former country, it would be me becoming bilingual out of absolute necessity. However, it would be good if we both were bilingual. It's amazing to me, bilingualism, and I do think it improves peoples' overall learning abilities--and I've also heard...I can't confirm it right now, I'll have to look it up...but my partner was saying he read that it helps prevent alzheimers.

They were two of my favorite subjects in school. Admittedly, Latin was strictly an elective in my high school days, but we had a good Latin teacher (who was also one of my school's best French teachers) and my enjoyment of Latin is what got me to take a Classics degree in university (where I specialized in Latin though I took a couple Greek courses just to get some exposure to the language). While I don't use them (well, French occasionally), the combination of the two has proven useful on occasion when I've come up against other Romance languages like Spanish. I used to be much more into languages than I have been in recent years. One of those things I should have kept up that I didn't.

Mendalla

Once I met a 5 year old who was totally fluent in English, French and German and had a basic vocabulary in Spanish.  He also was able to act with the 'normal' manners for each country when he travelled  (he clicked his heels and gave a little bow to adults in Germany, for example).

I find it interesting that Europeans are fluent in several languages, such is the proximity of countries which makes it necessary or perhaps stressed more in their educational system. 

I think children should be encouraged to learn a second language, probably French as a courtesy to our fellow-Canadians, and/or Spanish which is becoming more important.

I studied French through high school and Spanish in University.  They were my second "teachables".  Students were fortunate I never had to teach either, except as a supply teacher.

I can write and read both French and Spanish more easily than speak them - if you don't use it, you lose it.

My deficiencies in French became apparent last year when I spent 10 days camping in Tadoussac, Quebec.  I managed, but Quebecois is rather different.  I can pick up Spanish pretty quickly.  I took a night school course in Spanish a few years ago as a refresher before returning to Ecuador as a volunteer.

Both languages are extremely helpful if a person plans on working and travelling in other countries.

Wonder about Arabic/Asian nationalities and advisability of learning their languages, since these form huge numbers of new immigrants.  Probably more necessary in urban centres.  My sister-in-law teaches in a Toronto elementary school and has had to learn some survival language to work with her students.

No. I don't. Why should French get more attention than say music, art, dance and drama, which get far less attention? The arts also promote thinking skills, as well as expand and promote creativity.

A lot of students struggle enough with English. Why throw another language into the mix?

Here, even math isn't required through all the grades (or at least it wasn't when I was in school).  I think a second language should be offered to those who want it, but not required.

So this is where this thread is taking me. Why  are we known as bilingual country with all the French on everything and in speeches and..............

I don't think Canadians are known to be bilingual.  Just that Canada is bilingual.  Here, there are more people who speak a Chinese language (I'm a little ignorant about which one, or maybe the stats are combining them) than who can speak French.

I'm glad I was able to learn a bit of French, but in high school as it was I was unable to take courses that would have been very useful for my studies in university.  I would have been annoyed if French would have removed another one of my courses.  I've mentioned it here before, but the math/science students here (again, back when I was in grade 12, who knows now) lose out on options.  People on the arts side just have to take 1 science course in grade 12, they don't have to take the 2 maths, 2 chemistry, biology and physics courses I took (all grade 12 level).  The only option I would have had would have been to take gym before the official school day started.  I still had to take English and social studies, they was no combining of the core arts side.

Pierre Trudeau - the author of the Official Languages Act and the father of Canadian bilingualism - always said that it wasn't the intent or expectation of either that all Canadians should be bilingual, but that government services should be made available in both languages.

I can read French fairly well, I don't speak it well at all and I really can't understand it when it's spoken to me. I also don't feel that not being especially fluent in French has ever been a hindrance to me.

The reality is that unless one wants to work for the government, either Spanish or Mandarin Chinese are far more valuable than French in today's world.

I wonder what movie he got that "heel clicking and bowing" from....it is definitely not a "normal" behaviour,  unless you are invited to the Queen.

He was taught that by his German parent and extended family.  When I was in Germany I noticed this type of 'politeness' being used.  Maybe it is a regional thing?

My life would likely have been completely different if I had gone in to French Immersion when I was in grade 6.  I grew up in North Bay and there weren't many teaching positions up there when I graduated; the main ways in to a job were being either Catholic or bilingual or both.  Instead, I found myself unable to find a job in the north and moved to Brampton 3 years later.  My plan had always been to put my kid(s) in to French Immersion because it leads to so many more opportunities.

Due to Jim's recent death, I've changed my mind somewhat reluctantly.  Rachel is starting grade one in the fall and she's had a lot of upheavals in this past year.  She's missed a lot of school, so her reading in English isn't quite as far along as expected.  She's also very comfortable with her school and her classmates and the best before/after school daycare option is with our neighbour who has kids in her current school.  There might be an option for late immersion around grade 6 or 7, but for right now I think she'll be better of staying in more familiar surroundings.

Mists, when I was in school, most children did not take immersion in elementary.  If there were to take immersion, they started it in jr. high school (grade 7).  Rachel can definately take it later if she wishes.  Immersion isn't neccesary to get a good foundation of a language either.  It certainly helps, but I know people who just took a language class throughout school, did extra work post-secondary to become more fluent and are now capable (and are) teaching the language.

I have 1st year university french and the only thing it is good for is finding out where my neice and nephew (they are a product of french immersion) hid their presents in teh present game. I would go to one of the places they said and grab one of the presents. They never figured out what I was doing. I have to admit it was fun catching them when they were cheating.

As for a second language our student minister took sign language as his second language at university. I think that is really cool.

I love watching people speak in sign language - it is such a beautiful language. I only know a few words, but would love to learn more. At BC Conference, a couple of weeks ago, there was a sign language interpreter at the Sunday morning service and it was just wonderful watching her interpret what others were saying aloud. The scriptures were read in several languages - one of which was sign language, and that was very moving to me.