Was the French program we had in place beneficial?

[rhiley_08j]

I went through school right until graduation, having to take French as a compulsory course. Personally, I can understand a few choice sentences, and that as far as my understanding goes. I am curious how many others are in the same vote I am.

[sarahnb]

Core french no. I took it til grade 10. Mind you I went to 9 schools in three provinces in 12 years. I can't tell you how many gaps there are in cirriculum between the provinces.
Immersion, I have one child excelling in it. I would have to say for her age, she is bilingual. She wrote a very well thought out, persuasive letter to the politicians in the province. I have a friend proof read it and there was one minor mistake. Once I translated it to english, I was amazed thta she wrote it herself.

[countesscurling]

My child is in Grade 4 Early French Immersion and is well on her way to being bilingual. My younger sister took Late Immersion and is not only bilingual but multilingual. I took the mandatory French classes straight through elementary and middle school and two years in high school and my French is horrible. My child corrects me constantly.

[MrsBeasley]

I've worked with a few early immersion students and I've found that if they wrote you a message in english the spelling and grammer were awful. I believe they should get a good understanding of the english language first and then go into a later immersion say around grade 6 or so. That's just my opinion though.

We also need to learn more conversational french. lol Where am I ever going to use "Monique est dans la discotheque"??? Not often I am sure, which is about the extent of my recollection from only having french as an individual class each year when I was in school.

[rhiley_08j]

I've worked with a few early immersion students and I've found that if they wrote you a message in english the spelling and grammer were awful. I believe they should get a good understanding of the english language first and then go into a later immersion say around grade 6 or so. That's just my opinion though.

We also need to learn more conversational french. lol Where am I ever going to use "Monique est dans la discotheque"??? Not often I am sure, which is about the extent of my recollection from only having french as an individual class each year when I was in school.


Well said!!

[NoseToTheGrind]

I'm just wondering, keep all bullets in pockets...all this fuss about language...I know the children's education is very important, and to be bilingual is a definite asset in what kind of employment they can achieve and how it can make their lives more enriched, BUT...my question is.....Is there this amount of fuss going on in lets say Montreal...Quebec for example, to make sure their children learn English? or Is it just NB being the one who HAS to be bilingual ? btw all.....JUST ASKING.

[mizunderstood]

I think it is just NB because we are/were? the only officially billigual province in canada.... I went through FI until 10th grade, dropped it, just went into IB french at SJHS and I feel I got a WAY better "french experience" in IB in 3 years than I did in 9 years of FI. unfortunatly it has been years since I "needed" french for any jobs, so I admit my french is very rusty now... The issue I had was that we were taught "acadian" french and then the final oral exam was with parisian french. That caused HUGE issues for some of us.... There is a HUGE difference between acadian french and REAL french.... Just my opinion....The only job now a days that you need to be bilingual for is call centers... lol...

[MichelleM]

I think it is just NB because we are/were? the only officially billigual province in canada.... I went through FI until 10th grade, dropped it, just went into IB french at SJHS and I feel I got a WAY better "french experience" in IB in 3 years than I did in 9 years of FI. unfortunatly it has been years since I "needed" french for any jobs, so I admit my french is very rusty now... The issue I had was that we were taught "acadian" french and then the final oral exam was with parisian french. That caused HUGE issues for some of us.... There is a HUGE difference between acadian french and REAL french.... Just my opinion....The only job now a days that you need to be bilingual for is call centers... lol...

You need to be bilingual for all government jobs.

[sarahnb]

Reading a lot of the posts on this message board and others, I don't think immersion has anything to do with the poor spelling and grammar these days. I mean there are typos and then there are people who just don't know how to write a sentance. How many times have we complained about that here? There are a few posters that i can't even be bothered with because they don't use a period.

There is talk of another meeting next week to discuss the next step for those who are supportive of choice in education. If you would like to be involved, send me a pm with your email and I'll have you added to the group.

[inuit]

I could be totally wrong but N.B. is a bilingual province.French/English. Shouldn't we then be allowed to be comfortable in our mother tongue and not feel pressured to be bilingual for jobs. All but 2 provinces and territories in this country requires you to be totally english. The international language for business, airlines and tourism is english. It is the worldwide secound language. My son went into french immersion in grade 6 but by midterm I found his english skills were not keeping up so I took him out.I thought it was more important to know one language really well than two languages not so well. I also wonder if Quebec is as concerned about english?

[rhiley_08j]

Just a thought but when someone complains about another's use of grammar, maybe they should look through their own windows first. Punctuation, capitilization, and proper sentence structure have a huge impact on the message which you are trying to convey.

[inuit]

Got anyone in particular in mind ? I personally do not care so much about grammer. The important thing is what people have to say not how correct they say it. Not everyone here has the same level of education or even have english as their first language. They still want to be heard, and their opinions count. I think they should be heard, don't you Rhiley?

[rhiley_08j]

Got anyone in particular in mind ? I personally do not care so much about grammer. The important thing is what people have to say not how correct they say it. Not everyone here has the same level of education or even have english as their first language. They still want to be heard, and their opinions count. I think they should be heard, don't you Rhiley?


Oh for sure I agree with you. I would never complain about a person's use of grammar, for the most part, if a persons grammar is that bad you can usually get the idea of what they are trying to say. That is why I said some on here that complain about anothers use of grammar should look at their own posts before they criticize someone else's.

[sanstu]

Gee I find it odd that the government is blaming kids for "low" test scores. Last I checked these kids are being taught by gasp....gasp......teachers. Maybe that is where some of the problem lies. Just a thought.
Personally, my children were all in FI. 5 kids, 3 of which graduated with high honors,(all went on to post secondary education) the 2 youngest are in high school, 1 honors 1 high honors, both are looking to continue their education. The FI classes in the Valley are always full to the max.
I still think it's a matter of money.

[inuit]

Yep Rhiley I hear you. To the ones who find fault with grammer , I sure hope their grammer and spelling is absolutely dead on perfect otherwise they have no room to complain about others, A mistake is a mistake,big or small. We all make them.

[babydoll101]

Gee I find it odd that the government is blaming kids for "low" test scores. Last I checked these kids are being taught by gasp....gasp......teachers. Maybe that is where some of the problem lies. Just a thought.
Personally, my children were all in FI. 5 kids, 3 of which graduated with high honors,(all went on to post secondary education) the 2 youngest are in high school, 1 honors 1 high honors, both are looking to continue their education. The FI classes in the Valley are always full to the max.
I still think it's a matter of money.

Exactly!!! You have a very good point here. Something I never thought of before!! Maybe they are looking in the wrong place.

[sarahnb]

From what I have heard, when NB does the provincial tests, every student in that grade is counted. That means every student with disabilities and every student that is absent has there test score included. What is your test score if you weren't there to write the test? A big 0. The other provinces do not take these students into consideration.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/81-004-XIE/200406/imm.htm

[inuit]

I can see where absent student should not be included in the results but what do students with disabilities have to do with it . Should they not be counted?

[sarahnb]

It would depend on the particular disability and SEP's. If other provinces are not counting them and we are, that affects test scores.

[countesscurling]

As a member of my daughter's school's PSSC, I can verify that for provincial testing, if a child is absent the day of testing, they are scored 0!

[inuit]

Sorry, I firmly believe any student enrolled in the school system should have their test scores counted. Absent no. Try telling a parent of a disabled student that their childs test scores should not count. If that lowers the scores sorry.

[MrsBeasley]

Gee that makes it seem like you should send your kid to write the test no matter how sick and contagious they were. Even if they only sat there and guessed at every answer and were done in 15 minutes, they'd have a better chance at scoring more than a zero.

[inuit]

God forbid the school offer something like an alternate day of testing for students who are sick that day. When the scores are so important you'd think that might occur to someone.