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Education Minister Kelly Lamrock wishes to thank all those who took time to submit comments.

Please note that we will only post submissions from people who have given us explicit consent to do so. We will not post the following:

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Please also note that because each submission must be reviewed in the context of the above, there will normally be a time lag of between 2-3 days between receiving a submission and posting it on the website.

As of 4:30 p.m. Friday, July 25, 2008, the French Second Language consultation has concluded. Any comments received after that time will not be posted, but will be brought to the Minister's attention.

Improving French Second Language Programming Within a Quality Education System(pdf)

Comments appear in the language received.

Position Piece on FSL

Minister's Objectives:

1. Increase French proficiency for a greater number of students
2. Improve achievement in literacy, mathematics and science
3. Provide additional time during the school day for physical education, art, music and other enrichment activities
4. Address streaming

My synopsis:

Real problems with the current system include an extremely poor success rate for FSL acquisition in the Core program, some attrition from immersion programs and a disproportionate number of students on SEPs in the Core program.

Since the original consultation process during the writing of the FSL review, the Minister has added improving literacy, math and science performance and more time for physical education, art, music and other enrichment activities as objectives for a new plan.

What the Minister's proposed plan would achieve:

French proficiency may increase for many students from non-existent to approaching Intermediate. Dr. Netten suggests that 70% will reach this target, but with no data at all to support this claim. We must bear in mind that the pilot project students chose the program (i.e. were more engaged) and had 4 years of prior Core French. Thus the pilot results can be expected to reflect the best case scenario. I understand that the first pilot group would have written the grade 10 oral French proficiency assessment this spring. We need to see where these students placed before putting all of our eggs in this basket.

French proficiency for many other students would decrease dramatically with negligible numbers achieving Superior or Advanced levels compared with the previous program options. Given that the Intermediate level is unacceptable for employment requiring French proficiency, the employability of graduates from the Anglophone system will decrease. This is an unacceptable outcome for public education in New Brunswick.

There is no plan to increase proficiency in literacy, math or science as part of the proposed plan. The notion that mixing the students currently in the two different programs will result in increased proficiency is unsupported by data.

"Streams" exist in the current system in that some parents choose to put their children in the EFI program and others choose the Core French program. Since it is neither fair, nor politically wise, nor constitutionally valid to impose a French immersion education on all Anglophone students, these "streams" will exist as long is there is immersion. Perhaps it is more honest to even up the programs rather than to eliminate one of the streams. If a stream had to be eliminated, the research would support eliminating the Core program not immersion (given its higher success rates in French proficiency, math and English language arts).

Information sessions for parents should be more reflective of the current research such that parents have a better idea of the outcomes from both programs. Both programs need to be adequately supported so that students can remain in their program of choice when obstacles are encountered.

Proposed Solutions:

1. All kindergarten classes in the province should be 50/50 French/English or at least involve the AIM French program. This will give young children an exposure to French when they are at their most receptive. Experience at Connaught School in Fredericton has seen an increase in EFI enrollment from 50% to 80% of grade 1 students when AIM was followed in kindergarten.
2. During kindergarten, meaningful, honest, informed information sessions will help parents to choose the program most appropriate for their child. Hopefully this can dispel myths about immersion and encourage more students to enroll, making the program more inclusive. The current practices in some districts and schools tend to discourage rather encourage students to experience immersion. This leads to much of the "streaming" reported.
3. EFI and Core French programs should exist in parallel throughout the province from grade 1 on. Both programs should be adequately supported with trained R&M teachers.
4. A speech language pathologist should be present full time in all schools. This position can be used for early grade learners as well as contributing to the pre-K intervention that has been implemented. I know that this is an expensive proposition and could not be implemented immediately, but I think that it would make a huge difference to the delivery of timely intervention.
5. Core French in grades 1-4 should include 150 minutes per week of French instruction, preferably blocked into two session of 75 minutes. Through the use of AIM approach this could cover some of the music curriculum.
6. The early dismissal for K-2 students will end. The core competency material, such as language arts, reading, and math would be covered in the language of instruction of choice in the morning, and in the afternoon an extra hour would be added to the day for art, music and physical education. These activities would be blended (EFI and Core in the same groups) leading to a more inclusive experience for all. Some of the activities could be in French as serve as part of the AIM French curriculum for Core students. This is a significant cost saving measure (eliminating one full bus run), promotes fitness in students and is good for the environment by curbing CO2 emissions.
7. In grade 4 or 5 all Core students for whom it is appropriate would take an Intensive French program. It is not clear to me whether this should be absolutely inclusive or whether it should be for all but those on extreme SEP's. That is a matter for those with greater knowledge of special needs education to determine.
8. LFI would no longer exist as it leads to excessive streaming. Following the Ottawa example, the Late entry point for immersion should be removed. In an ideal world or a richer province the luxury of being able to offer this program could exist.
9. Following grade 5 Intensive French, a meaningful post-intensive French program would continue through grade 10.
10. EFI would continue through grade 10. After grade 10 students are preparing for trades, college or university and should choose their courses without having French as a requirement. We do not require Biology or Chemistry or History at this level, so French, both post -intensive and immersion should exist only for those who choose to continue with them.
11. An oral and written proficiency examination at the end of grade 10 would be the basis for the bilingual certificate and the outcome measure for FSL.

Clearly there are a variety of ways to address issues of streaming without eliminating French Immersion.

Programs such as the "good for kids" program allow both FI and Core teachers to benefit from existing expertise. The actual intervention and lesson plans are built by the teacher and the learning specialist but the lessons and intervention is done by the classroom teacher.

This is a program that would have IMMEDIATE results, it wouldn't take 10 years to get this up and running.

Other programs, such as online training programs similar to the one offered at USASK http://edpsecertificate.usask.ca./information.html.

It wouldn't take long to get a program such as this up and running and I am sure that our universities would love to create learning opportunities that would deal with any long term shortages in special education (that exist with or without EFI by the way). Having a long term plan to train educators does not mean you can't take immediate action to deal with streaming.

I also wanted to add that I am happy that the Department of Education is finally taking interest in dealing with the imbalance of special needs support in the early grades. CPF has been asking for this attention for a long time and have been a voice in the wilderness for parity between programs. Our past efforts were ignored by many of the same administrators currently driving the efforts to eliminate EFI. It is sad that the same group who ignored our suggestions in the past are now using the lack of balance as justification for eliminating an entire program.

The fact is that there are a number of ways to address issues of streaming and keep EFI that have been raised by credible sources such as Joan Netton, Joe Dicks and in fact by the overwhelming majority of FSL experts across the country.

It is my sincere hope that instead of approaching this consultation as a necessary political process to achieve a predetermined outcome, the Minister surprise us with a genuine intention to collaborate and work with experts and stakeholders.

At very least, a proper panel of experts should be struck to look at the decision and give this matter the care it deserves. Our children deserve more than a hasty decision made August 5th for September implementation.

Mr. Lamrock:

I am one of the parents who has a kindergartener up in the air. She was supposed to enroll in EFI in September. I am also an educator with a shared major in learning disabilities. My husband and I initailly struggled with our decision. Why? Because I knew first hand about the "ghetto-ization" of the core classes because of streaming. I have had a retired elementary/middle school principal tell me not to even think of teaching this group if I wasn't an immersion teacher because I would only get "the bottom of the barrel" for students and it is too hard. My own daughter's teacher suggested to my husband that she go into EFI because she is so bright. Here is where your perhaps unintentional streaming occurs. We do have a bright child and we didn't want to contribute to this problem. If all the bright kids are streamed to EFI, who are left in Core? Even as a teacher, I feel it should be a union issue that Core teachers are left with a group which is overrepresented in behavioural and learning problems and yet given no real extra help and certainly no more money for a job that is definitely more difficult and challenging.

However we chose to enroll her because neither one of us is bilingual and we have found it a disadvantgage in New Brunswick. Also there is a perceived pressure to enroll in EFI so your child is not held back by being in a class with a population that could be more challenging.

I applauded your attempt at solving the problems in the system, but upon a long reflection, I believe it may have an easy and cheap choice. I believe there is a better way. But it may cost money.

Sir, your current decision penalizes many instead of helping everybody. There is a way to help everybody without penalizing anyone. Keep French. For everybody. Keep French as a subject once a day so all the children benefit from hearing the language on a regular basis at an age that all your current dissenters believe is the crucial age for picking up a second language. In NS when I started school in 1979 we all had French everyday. There was no immersion until grade 7 in only one school. I didn't go to that school in grade 7 so I never enrolled in FI. However I was speaking orally in exams at a level that may surprise you, because I had been exposed to the language since I was five years old. The government changed the entry point for French to grade 4 just after 1980 and none of my four siblings could speak French and dropped it as soon as they were allowed.

Why must you take all French from the kids just to move the entry point for EFI? I am a total believer in literacy improvment as I am a high school English teacher, but you needn't remove all French. You aren't removing Art or Gym.

Secondly, you cannot address literacy improvement or French improvement until you resolve the problems with inclusion. When the government of the day went with total inclusion the promise was for adequate support. That was never realized. The governement has let down all students with special needs when they did not put the money into resources and the extra bodies to give these children the individual help they require. It is not a luxury for them but a necessity that is going ignored for many of them.

How can you have these students in FI if there are few TAs who are bilingual? If there are no Methods and Resources materials in French? Now they have a double whammy.

Did you know that when I graduated from UNB Education in 1999 there was still no requirement for teachers to have taken even one course in learning disabilities. A course in adult education filled the "special learners" requirement. I have worked with many teachers that see accomodations for L.D. kids as special treatment that gives them the edge above regular kids. Imagine! Something like a specific test outline so they can study only what will actually appear on the test instead of entire chapters that will not is going to suddenly elevate their GPA above the head of the class.

I have had a principal that offered me Advanced classes to teach as a carrot if I took on more extra curricular activities, but if I did not the "selective" or "3" level were all I could expect. I guess he ignored my Major in LD being my motivation. New teachers can expect to teach these students while experienced senior teachers haven't had a LD student in a decade.

Finally, literacy does not start in Kindergarten. It starts at birth when parents read, and read to their children. But when parents or single parents are working all day and night because our cost of living is so high when are they reading to their kids? When these kids go to school without breakfast, how are they paying attention? When they are drinking pop instead of milk because it is much cheaper, how are they developing properly? We are a two income family. We have professional jobs. We live in a modest house and have one car and in the last several years our money has gotten very tight, between heating oil, gas, taxes, property taxes, etc., I can't even imagine how people on smaller incomes are doing it, not to mention fixed incomes. Now I know this is not your territory, but please do not think it does not affect literacy and test scores.

Put the money into the TAs, materials, and Methods and Resources that are needed to help those with learning issues. If you are so concerned with children with learning and behavioural issues, give them what they need in English and French. Keep French for all. Even if it is a period a day until grade 5. Make sure each school has a breakfast program. You will see scores go up if everybody has a full belly when they start the day.

Thank you for your time.

Dear Sir:

Our family just returned home from vacation this week, we were sorry to miss the French Immersion Information Session held on the Saturday of the first long weekend in July. We travelled to Ottawa to celebrate Canada Day with our 10 year old Son and 6 year old Daughter. Our son is going into Grade 5 French Immersion and our daughter is going into Grade 2 French Immersion (maybe the last class).

On our vacation we wanted to tour the Parliament Buildings while in Ottawa, but everyone else had the same idea of course. All of the English tours were booked solid, but they had room to squeeze us into the last French tour of the day. We did not hesitate to take this tour because our children are in French Immersion. Our son understood everything and translated for us. We thought that he might miss some of it, but he did not, he was very interested and had an excellent understanding of the tour. He has received top marks in all subjects at school and is proof that the French Immersion program is working. Our daughter used her skills she has learned in Grade 1 French Immersion by talking in French and playing with children in Quebec at a play park. She also ordered her food and drinks at restaurants in French.

In closing, we have been pleased with the progress our children are making learning the French language. We were not sure if we were doing the right thing when we first enrolled them in French Immersion because of our inability to read and speak the language ourselves. At our first information session back in 2003, another parent said to us it is all about "raising the bar" to help our children keep reaching goals in life. We are happy with our choice of French Immersion and strongly urge you NOT to take this gift away from future students!

I support elimination of EFI. I do, however, think core french should begin in kindergarten

Dear Minister Lamrock:

Eliminating early french immersion makes no sense at all.

1. While other provinces are moving towards early french immersion, and some are even eliminating late french immersion, we are swimming against the tide. I have never been one to follow the pack just because it's the thing to do, but you have to have a realistic reason for not doing so - you have failed to convince me you have that reason.

2. All the language experts say this is a wrong move, even the ones who designed the intense french program you want to move to. Croll and Lee are not language experts (I know Croll has training in education, what exactly are Lee's credentials?). Listen to the language experts please.

3. Children will have a harder time picking up the correct sounds and learning french in grade five than kindergarten or grade 1. Not only is the window of opportunity in the brain closing, but the children
themselves are more self concious at this age.

4. Streaming will be as bad and worse with your proposed idea. After grade 5 the students split back into french and english systems, and are kept separate.

5. Early french immersion is not the culprit for poor literacy and science skills. Get back to basics (ie. stop experimenting with the next great idea that never works out), shrink class sizes a bit (ie. teaching is better without 90% crowd control), stop trying to make everyone feel good (ie. actually fail people who do no work, don't pass them on), let your
administrators and teachers know you back them (ie. parents have to take some responsibility for their children, it is not someone else's fault).

6. Eliminating early french immersion was not part of your election platform. Any such platform will never get a vote from me - my children and their future are important to me, my wife, and our family. I have one
child finishing grade two EFI and doing well. My second child, starting kindergarten, will be deprived of the opportunity the first has had.

7. The changes you have proposed have been rushed. Even now, six weeks is not consultation, it is lip service. Take a year to get it right.

8. Replacing core french with the intensive program seems to have few opponents, including myself, because it is seen as a positive change. Eliminating early french immersion is a negative change.

One of the great successes with the Intensive French pilots that have been going on is the increased interest in learning French, increased enrollment in LFI, and the excitement of parents and students about French - they are reported to be quite thrilled at how much French they are learning - this is fantastic.

This can also happen earlier, and has been.

At four schools in District 18 (maybe others as well, not aware), AIM has been introduced in the kindergarten classes. As a parent, I was unaware of it until my daughter came home speaking and singing in French. I was quite pleased, myself.

It turns out the same excitement and confidence in the potential to learn French is happening in this case.

Our school's EFI enrollment has always been strong - about 50%. With simply adding AIM to K, it has now gone to 80%, in both years it has been tried.

I see streaming as happening in two broad ways - one, self-selection and two, systemic supports / challenges once in school.

I see adding AIM or other French exposure to K, along with a strong parental information and support strategy, as a tangible way to address the self-selection component of streaming.

Just one idea of many, I know, but I think its significant.

Dear Mr.Lamrock, I had four children go through the education system in Fredericton.Our eldest--now 26 just missed Grade One Immersion as she was in private kindergarten the year it was cancelled.(1987) She started late immersion in grade 7 and continued through that program until grade 12. Our son stayed in the Engligh program with core French offered only until Grade 10. Our third child started in the first Grade 4 Immersion class offered and continued her program through until grade 12. Our youngest,now 19 started late Immersion in Grade 6 .She missed the Grade One option as it was reintroduced only in the year when she started Grade 2 . She opted out of the program after Grade 10. Some people may think that my opinion shouldn't matter since none of my children were able to attend the Grade one option. However,after several years of fighting for consistency across the board in the French Second Language issue I must say I think a program proprosed where all students are on the same playing field would seem the best choice. Certainly ,my husband and I felt after going through 4 different programs--that the grade 6 option was the best one overall. All of our children understand French well and the three that went through later immersion programs have had their assessment levels tested privately through the government and have all tested at the "Intermediate Plus" level. My advice would be to reintroduce core French from kindergarten on and then still go with the half year intensive French program proprosed in Grade Five. I think if possible I'd prefer to have TWO half year immersion years in Grade 4 and 5 so parents,teachers and students alike would have two years to help them choose CORE or IMMERSION when moving on to middle school in grade 6. I have been a longstanding representative on Parent School Support Committees at Albert St.,George St. and FHS and feel very strongly that having all students in Elementary schools partaking in the same programs would be the best way to start their education . The middle school option to branch out into English with core or continue with Immersion seems to be the best model. Everyone must remember the PILOT GRADE 5 intensive French programs that have recently taken place in the province .Those programs are being used as a model for the new proprosals. However all students in those 'model classrooms" had already taken core French since grade one. Therefore , I think it's mandatory that core French be reintroduced from grades one to four .Then half year intensive French could start in Grade five for all students. As stated above, I still think "core French" could start as early as kindergarten and the half year intensive model should probably take place in BOTH grades 4 and 5. Since noone can be sure what the perfect model is,I think "no elementary streaming" is helpful. The core French in early years should definitely NOT be elininated no matter what final choice is made. Thank You

As a parent of a child entering kindergarten next year, I've been keenly interested in this issue. I'm monolingual, and one of the reasons our family chose to move to New Brunswick was to give our child the opportunity to learn French well in Canada's only bilingual province. The decision to do away with all French instruction in the early grades is incomprehensible. If optional early French immersion really does create these streaming issues, then it's simple: *all* students must receive instruction in French as a core subject like any other, from as early as possible, preferably kindergarten. Starting in Grade 5 makes no sense whatsoever. You'll have an even worse streaming issue starting in Grade 6!

I am disappointed in the process used to come up with the Croll -Lee report as well as the consultative that is/has been undertaken to obtain public input.

If public input was truly desired than the majority of the time for consultation would not have been during the peak vacation seasons. It has been made apparent by both the Judicial Review and the Ombudsman's Report that the consultation to date was well below the minimum standard and far below the consultative standard set by the Premier this spring.

The Croll-Lee report appears biased both based on independent assessment and the Ombudsman's Report. The statistical interpretation is flawed and when given the opportunity to correct them no such effort has been made. The bias has been exacerbated by the Minister's decision to take this report rather than the suppressed Dicks-Kristmanson report that the Government had earlier commissioned. I would have thought that a report from French Second Language (FSL) experts would have held more weight.

The attrition rates on which this decision was based is inaccurate and misleading. Valid statistical analysis indicates that there is no such difference.

There are additional issues with the proposed changes to the FSL curriculum. The Intensive French (IF) program in New Brunswick was based on students who had taken Core French leading up to the IF year. Therefore the pilot should not be expected to represent the expected outcomes with the elimination of Core leading up to the IF year. The full effects of this shall not be known until the cohort entering Grade One this year has graduated. If this is the program that the government would like to assess than pilot it in a manner that is representative with the necessary resources to correct any deficiencies that may arise. The IF program was NOT designed to replace Early French Immersion (EFI).

The oral proficiency testing, if that is to be the standard that French Proficiency is to be measured, must be conducted annually on all students if any meaningful conclusions are to be drawn to facilitate positive change. The results of a voluntary assessment cannot be used as the measure of the success of the program, nor can the results be extrapolated in a meaningful way.

Fundamentally, students learn languages better when they are younger. This has been capitalized on by many of the European Second Language Curricula. The arbitrary exclusion of this data set because "they have been doing it longer" limits the potential results.

Based on an alternative assessment of the costs of the various programs Immersion is slightly more expensive than core, however, EFI costs less than Late French Immersion (LFI) and the province receives FSL funding from the Federal Government and there has been no mention of the impact of this decision on the Federal funding.

The streaming issues has been highlighted by the Minister after the backlash from his initial decision. Based on the data it would appear that this issue occurs in LFI as there is no evidence of streaming in Grade Four, however, it is more pronounced in Grade Eight. This makes sense, after five years in the school system, students and parents have made an assessment as to how the student fares academically and if there are any issues or if they feel that they can do better in the Core stream the choice will be made at this time. If, however, the parents make the decision in Kindergarten or Grade One there is no such preconceived notion, nor is it likely that the student has become prejudiced in such a way that may influence their ability to learn French. If an increase in proficiency is desired increase the public awareness of EFI and strongly encourage all parents to enrol their children in the program. Provide any students with special needs the resources to succeed in this program, give them the advantages of the improved proficiency. Nova Scotia seems to have come up with a program to accomplish this, surely the only Bilingual province can do at least as well.

Later comments have indicated that the Minister believes that EFI would be detrimental to English proficiency, however, the literature indicates otherwise. The Report of Current Research on the Effect of Second Language Learning on First Language Literacy Skills clearly indicates that first language literacy is actually improved.

Lowering the proficiency levels is not the solution. Lower scores in Math and first language literacy have clearly not helped our children, how would we expect that doing the same for second language training would do the same. FSL Graduates that speak French that will "irritate the native French listener" will clearly be at a disadvantage in the employment marketplace. This will also further drop the pool of candidates available to teach or provide academic support in the future. How likely is it that students graduating that have "individual utterances that are minimally cohesive" will go on to reach the Superior standard outlined as the requirement to teach.

FSL instruction is one of the few areas that the New Brunswick Educational System is leading the country. Is this where we should be focusing our attention? Perhaps we should focus on the Math and Literacy skills that the Minister has clearly indicated are where the deficiencies lie. This proposal does nothing to address the issues.

Additionally, how can the Minister indicate that everything is on the table if he hopes to have it implemented within a month? It seemed that there was a tremendous drive to have everything completed by the end of March so that there would be time to implement for the 2008-09 school year.

It appears that the decision has been made and the Minister is simply seeking to appease one aspect of the Judicial Review. I am extremely disappointed in the error filled and inaccurate report, the Ministers choice of reports to follow, the "non-consultative" process and the apparent collusion involved in the process.

Let us truly "put children first" and use accurate data to develop a FSL strategy that will include all children and not simply lower the bar.

Parents who have been through the early or late FI programs now have the choice to register their children in District #1 (French school). Also parents with a french background, and also parents with a french last name. This will include a large number of kids that WERE being enrolled in EFI down the road. If even half of these potential numbers (30 to 40% EFI enrollment in my region of the province) choose to go through district #1, this will only create streaming between the districts, instead of inside the 4 walls of a particular school (If this is in fact what causes streaming). Not to mention the overcrowding of the french schools (already overcrowded). This is not going to fix any problems that may exist within the english system.
My child has gone through early immersion in grades 1&2, core french in grades 3&4 as he struggled greatly with immersion (no internal support at school), support cannot be given from home 100% if we do not know what is expected from our kids. He went on to become a pilot student of the intensive French program in which he greatly succeeded. He is now going into LFI by his own choice. "I hope that doesn't make him elitist". I have seen all of the FSL programs. I truly believe that his success with IF would not have happened without the previous exposure that he had to French. The intensive french program, as it is now will need to be a watered down version of itself if the kids do not receive any french training prior to it. (I don't believe this is what the creators of the program had intended. The IF program as it stands is very successful, but do you really expect it to be successful in the future if everything that leads up to it is cut.
I strongly feel that if the problems are occuring within the french core progran, fix the french core program. This is NOT the voice of an "Emotional" parent as I am in the position to register my younger child into District #1 and may choose to do so as she is showing great promise in both languages (3 years old). I am also not one who is considered in the "Upper class" so I don't see myself as elitist, I simply wanted the ability to choose the direction of education for my children. I have had many opportunities in my working career, and I would have to say that 80% of those in this area can be credited to the fact that I am bilingual.