New Brunswick Education Minister Bill Hogan listens to people at the Delta Fredericton on Jan. 25 during a public consultation for the government's proposed changes to the French immersion program.Hina Alam/The Canadian Press
When New Brunswick’s Education Minister Bill Hogan toured his province over the last month for feedback on planned changes to French language learning, his audience wasn’t about to let him off easily.
New Brunswick – the country’s only officially bilingual province – has a history of tinkering with its French-as-a-second-language program.
This time, the government of Premier Blaine Higgs has proposed drastic action: dismantling the French-immersion program altogether. In its place, children entering kindergarten and Grade 1 in anglophone school districts this fall would spend half their day learning in French, and the other half leaning in English.
Over the last month, during in-person and virtual consultations, parents and teachers stepped up to the microphone and expressed their worries to Mr. Hogan: Why was the government removing a family’s right to choose if their children learn a second language? Where would the province find qualified French language teachers amid a national shortage? Why would it throw a wrench into the education of children after more than two years of pandemic-related disruptions?
Families and education experts are also wrestling with one underlying question: When will the province stop fiddling with its French-as-a-second-language program? Over the years, successive governments have moved the entry point to French immersion from Grade 1 to Grade 3 in 2008 and then back to Grade 1 under then-premier Brian Gallant in 2017.
“It is super frustrating that the government keeps playing politics with our kids,” said Brad Kennedy, a father of three who lives in Quispamsis, outside of Saint John.
Mr. Kennedy spoke at the session in Saint John late last month. His eldest daughter, now 14, started French immersion when the entry point was in Grade 3. His 10-year-old started French immersion in Grade 1. Mr. Kennedy and his wife, a teacher, want to enroll their son, who starts kindergarten this fall, in the English program. The four-year-old has a developmental issue that affects his ability to communicate.
“He couldn’t do French because he doesn’t have a grasp on the English language quite yet,” said Mr. Kennedy, adding that the government’s proposal is “ridiculous.”
In a virtual townhall last week, the overwhelming response from residents was that changes to the French-as-a-second-language program would be a disservice to students. One person out of more than a dozen speakers supported the change. The speaker said that the province needs to support bilingualism. Mr. Hogan listened, while his deputy minister took notes.
“I will be doing nothing that will cause any damage to anybody’s learning opportunities as we move forward,” Mr. Hogan told the audience at the end of a two-hour session. He said his grandchild would enter the new program.
The department of education said Mr. Hogan was not available for an interview with The Globe and Mail.
Under the current model, students in anglophone school districts have the option of entering the immersion program in Grade 1, where roughly 90 per cent of instruction is in French. Students in the English program take core French, in which the language is taught as a subject.
The proposed changes, which were announced in December, would mean students entering kindergarten and Grade 1 this fall will be taught math, reading and writing in English, and then engage in exploratory French learning for other subject areas, including social studies. The government has said the changes would be phased in over two years.
Students in higher grades and those currently in French immersion would continue that track, the government said.
Across much of the country, French immersion has been popular among families wanting to give their children fluency in a second language. But the program has also come under criticism for creating a two-tiered system within public education, with children with learning disabilities or behavioural challenges overrepresented in English programs.
Léo-James Lévesque, an assistant professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, said the proposed changes in his province have not been well thought through. The government’s goal is for all anglophone district students to have a conversational level of French. However, the research on how children learn a second language has shown that it requires more intensive instruction, he said.
Prof. Lévesque has observed the changes to the French-as-a-second program in the province over the decades.
“It was almost like every time a government would come in, they would say ‘We didn’t do this so therefore we need to change it because it wasn’t our idea,’” he said.
“When you look at it, it’s nonsensical.”
Rebecca Davis, a parent who lives in Riverview, just outside Moncton, said that in her blended family of five children, she has seen the difference being immersed in French can make at an early age in acquiring proficiency in the language.
Her youngest child, who is 3, would start school under the new program. Ms. Davis is frustrated that her child would lose out on the option of French immersion.
“I’m so tired of our children being the guinea pigs whenever the governments feel like it,” she said. “I’m afraid for our kids’ future when they’re going through all these flip flops. I’m afraid that they’re not going to have the opportunities of those educated in immersion or in the francophone system.”