French Immersion

It's kind of messed up that the French they teach you in school doesn't help you in the slightest to speak with actual French Canadians.

9 Comments

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Natty

Oct 12, 2017 at 12:50pm

I don't know why parents get so excited about French immersion. No one I've ever met who went has retained any kind of true fluency. I think they'd do better by their children to set them up learning Mandarin.

@ Natty

Oct 12, 2017 at 1:36pm

I was a student of french immersion for 10 years. I have been speaking french since I was 5 yo. I moved to Quebec as a younger man, went to school and eventually worked with mostly Francophones and spoke French everyday. I still speak French to this day and I always appreciate my french education. I think people make too much of the difference between Quebec and international French. I never had too much difficulty speaking with folks from Quebec. Its different for sure but what do you expect?

Felix

Oct 12, 2017 at 3:21pm

That kind of post is usually from unilingual Anglophones.

French-Canadians can usually speak "CBC French" if they want to and can speak a more casual even "joual" with their grandparents or country aunts and uncles too.

So if the French in school is a little more formal than street French in Quebec, it is still a great grounding to get anyone started.

Anonymous

Oct 12, 2017 at 4:40pm

Not a big shock.

Canada has always been run by morons.

Sadly,

Oct 12, 2017 at 5:29pm

Many of the people that enroll their children in French Immersion in BC do so to get them away from the Public school classes where Children with Special Needs are taught.
This comes from their belief that their child is not getting equal instruction.

Do yourself a favour and learn Country French, most Provinces outside of BC have active French Communities.
In Winnipeg and many rural Manitoba towns signage is bi-lingual and you can easily get service in French at banks, stores and so on.
Mayor Nenshi of Calgary and Mayor Bowman are both trilingual including their respective Native tongues.

@Natty and @sadly

Oct 12, 2017 at 6:16pm

You're both wrong. I happen to know someone very well who was a late French immersion student when it first started. Having that benefit of learning French in a real way has been extremely helpful for that person as an adult, particularly in securing a job where it was necessary., even though they hadn't used French in a regular setting in over 10 years. It came back quickly. Also, I know specific circumstances where special needs children are most definitely enrolled in French immersion classes, so I'm not sure where that erroneous assumption came from.

Learning another language

Oct 12, 2017 at 9:44pm

enriches a part of a child's brain that other subjects do not. Same with music. I found my French quite useful when I traveled in Europe and was glad I learned to speak it with the correct pronunciation as a child.
Also in some Vancouver schools, the non French Immersion classes are mostly ESL - English as Second Language - children who are learning to speak English. @Natty - last I heard Mandarin was not one of the 2 official languages of Canada.

Lorne B.

Oct 13, 2017 at 3:51pm

I don't know where you get your info from OP but you are so wrong it stinks. I know French immersion teachers who have accents ranging from upper Outremont snob, Quebec city comme il le faut" and up-country.

15 8Rating: +7

We obvs didn't go to the same schools.

Oct 13, 2017 at 4:29pm

Who were your French teachers? In public school, some of mine were Acadian and some of them were Quebecois. I wasn't even in immersion, as my school didn't offer it. (And then in university, one prof was Franco-Albertan, one was Belgian, one was German, one was Romanian, and one was from some French island in the Caribbean.)

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