Parents and teachers have expressed fear the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s recent decision to approve bilingual kindergarten was not made in students’ best interest.
Starting this September all kindergarten programs governed by the biggest English public school board in Ottawa will be taught half in French and half in English. Kids in junior and senior kindergarten will now spend 150 minutes of the day in French instruction, a significant boost from the current 20 minutes currently offered.
Nancy Wise is the director of a French immersion consulting firm in that helps families navigate the French immersion system when they need support. Her main concern is the reduction of hours in French instruction in grades one through three. These students will go from about 300 minutes of instruction in French to 180 minutes a day.
“Research is quite clear that for the best proficiency in a second language children need an early start and lots of intensity,” she says.
“The decisions been made but in my opinion if you want the highest proficiency levels you give children an early start, 100-per-cent French language instruction and encourage them to continue French immersion.”
Another problem she says is that because there is now no option for taking English with core French parent’s freedom of choice is removed.
“Although I’m a believer that learning another language has a lot of benefits there are parents out there who would prefer to just have their kids in an English program.”
Paul Dillmann is an active member of Ottawa Parents for Early French Immersion, a group that serves as a space for parents to raise concerns around the changes that are coming.
He says he feels like financial and logistical reasons are behind the changes.
Although the board insists the changes were not made for financial reasons by implementing them the OCDSB will make a financial gain of $2.7 million per year.
“I think money was one of the factors that made the decision for this September rather than taking more time to think through the implications,” says Dillman.
He is also disappointed because he feels there has not been enough consultation with parents, teachers and students and he doesn’t think that everybody has heard about these changes.
“There will be surprised parents when they register their kids for kindergarten,” he says.
Erica Braunovan is one of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustees who voted in favour of the proposed changes.
Braunovan admits that the school board doesn’t always have enough bilingual early childhood educators but they will have enough personnel and resources available to implement these changes by September.
She says students in grade one to three in early French immersion will now learn mathematics in English instead of French.
These teachers will now be free to instruct the students in kindergarten.
Braunovan says the board also advocated for this change because she says it makes sense to have all the kids in the school learning maths in one language.
Braunovan says she believes the changes will benefit many students including those from specific groups such as those from lower income households, newcomers to Canada and children with disabilities.
French immersion programs are linked to elitism and don’t often reflect Canada’s diverse community, according to Statistics Canada.
The idea is that mandatory bilingual kindergarten would help these groups to choose immersion in grade one who make up a smaller percentage of early immersion because they would have had early contact with French instruction in kindergarten.
“French immersion works because the prime age to latch onto a language is five or six,” says Dr. Christopher Fennell, an expert on language development at the University of Ottawa.
“It’s a simple relationship, the more exposure you have the better you will be at that language,” he says.
But not everyone is convinced this program will work and some parents believe it could put their children’s bilingual capabilities at risk.
The school board plans to monitor the changes through an implementation committee, which consists of the board’s staff, teachers and early childhood educators.
They will meet throughout the year to look at how the plan is rolling out and see if anything needs to be changed.