Deadline nearing for French immersion registration
Parents who want to sign their kids up for early or middle level French immersion classes had better hurry up, as the deadline for applications is Feb. 2.
French immersion offers children the chance to take other classes in the language besides the compulsory core modules that every student must complete – and it is highly recommended.
“It helps to strengthen their problem-solving, reasoning and creative thinking skills, develop their understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures and it increases their competitiveness in an increasingly global job market,” said Velma LeBlanc Dunn, regional French co-ordinator for Chignecto-Central Regional School Board.
Fluency in French can help students gain careers in organizations such as the federal government, Canada’s largest employer, which is bilingual.
This can mean a job working in roles from national parks to the federal parliament in Ottawa, with French enjoying equal status to English across the board.
As well as work, students who learn French can also practise it on trips to France or Quebec and those in high school can take the Diplôme d’études en langue française.
This exam is a second-language test developed by the French government, whose embassy has accredited Nova Scotia to offer it.
“The language that we speak in school is standard French,” said LeBlanc Dunn.
However, French itself is a global language with many different dialects spoken worldwide.
This includes the Metropolitan French spoken in France and Canadian dialects such as the Acadian, Quebecois and Metis forms, to name a few.
French is also widely spoken elsewhere in Europe, across western and central Africa and parts of the Caribbean, which both France and Belgium once ruled as vast colonies.
French speakers can be found as far away as Vietnam and parts of the southern United States, where the Cajun dialect is still spoken.
“It’s an advantage to be bilingual by far,” said Claudette Lanteigne, CCRSB’s French language administrative assistant.
Her colleague LeBlanc Dunn could attest to that, having grown up in an Acadian household where only French was spoken at home.
She learned English at school and on TV, a reversal for most Nova Scotian students from English homes who take French classes.
“Knowing an additional language, it’s so easy to carry it in your pocket,” said LeBlanc Dunn.
CCRSB offers early French immersion at Truro Elementary School, Spring Street Academy, Elmsdale District School and A.G. Baillie Memorial School. This offers 80 per cent of all school instruction in French.
Students can take middle French immersion at both A.G. Baillie and West Pictou Consolidated Schools.
CCRSB has not yet released the registration deadline for late French immersion, but these classes are only at Redcliff Middle School. Both the middle and late immersion programs offer 70 per cent of class instruction time in French.
The board also offers a separate integrated French program with 25 to 30 per cent of instruction time in French. This program is delivered at Dr. W. A. MacLeod Consolidated School, E.B. Chandler Junior High, Springhill Junior/Senior High, Redcliff Middle School, Truro Junior High School, Central Colchester Junior High, Riverside Education Centre and South Colchester Academy.