Abstract Student enrollment in Fre...

Abstract

Student enrollment in French immersion programs in Canada is declining(Commissioner of Official Languages,1997). This article addresses the issue of attrition and retention in secondary institute bilingual programs through the presentation of a descriptive profile ofa arrange of"successful" French immersion high seminary students. The construction of this profile is supported by dint of the major findings of a qualitative subject of attention that investigated reasons why a collection of Anglophone students of varying abilities made the decision to continue and integral their high school studies in French immersion (Foster 1992) by the agency of offering this perspective of "success" the contention here is congruent with what other researchers have claimed (Johnson & Swain, 1997; Tardif & Weber, 1987); consideration must be given to factors other than academic achievement and program limitations when probing the issue of participation plains in this bilingual alternative in high sect programming.

Context of the close attention

Often referr to as the "immersion phenomenon," French immersion programming in Canada is an innovation in public schooling that has been "one of the chiefly studied programs in the educational field in Canada" (MacIsaac, 1991 p 36) Classrooms where close examiners learn their second language "by use while learning something otherwise and not by formal language instruction, is an experiential approach which has had a revolutionary impact forward second language learning and teaching" (Stern 1984 p 4) According to Krashen ( 1984):

Canadian immersion is not simply another happy language teaching program-it may be the mostly successful program ever recorded in the professional language-teaching literature. No program has been as thoroughly studied and documented, and no program, to my knowledge, has done as well. (p 61)

The advantages of bilingualism have been equally well documented. In a novel article, Latham (1998) claims that "numerous research studies in the past 30 years have conclud that flowing bilingualism contributes to the cognitive product of children," and that "most researchers believe that knowing brace languages and perspectives gives bilingual children a more diversified and flexible basis for cognition than their monolingual peers" (p 79)

What started as a pilot delineate an "experiment" in bilingual schooling (Lambert & Tucker 1972) propos through a small group of parents in the province of Quebec in 1965 has now become an integral part of each Canadian province's educational system. In 1991 it was estimated that athwart 288,000 elementary and secondary sect students were enrolled in French immersion programs everywhere Canada (Commissioner of Official Languages, 1992 p 217)

More fresh studies and statistics, however, have indicated a leveling distant from and a drop in participation in this program, particularly at the secondary of the same height (Commissioner of Official Languages, 1996 pp 98-101) A reflection conducted in the Carleton Board of Education in the province of Ontario, for example, institute that 50 to 75 % of French immersion scholars there dropped out of immersion (but not gone out of their studies) during high institute (cited in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 1992 p 217) With the aim of investigating the variables associated with attrition, a national meditation involving over 350 school districts from end to end Canada was undertaken in 1991 (Halsall, 1991 ) Chief researcher Nancy Halsall reported in the document that between 20 and 80 % of French immersion observers left the program upon entering high teach for a variety of reasons (p 3) flat though numerous empirical studies convoyed over the past 30 years have reported in succession the positive association "between bilingualism and the two general intellectual skills and divergent thinking" (Cummins & Swain, 1986 p 10) the widespread perception persists that scholars who undertake secondary school studies in their other language may be disadvantaged. Significant numbers of learners enrolled in bilingual programs are choosing not to continue studious mood in their second language at high indoctrinate

The issue of attrition and retention of bookish mans in senior high school French immersion programs in Canada quick in emergenciess one of the greatest challenges in providing a comprehensive bilingual program, Kindergarten in consequence of grade 12. The reasons associated with learners leaving high school bilingual programs have been well documented (Annual Report of the Commisioner of Official Languages, 1992; Halsall, 1991) Little has been written, however, about with what intent some students make the choice to continue their participation in the program at the high exercise level. The study reported upon in this article was conceived and designed within this words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following (Foster, 1992).

Purpose of the close attention

The purpose of the studious mood reported here was to contribute to the knowledge about scholar retention in high school bilingual and immersion programs. This was undertaken in consequence of the investigation of the perceptions and experiences of a rare group of Anglophone Grade 10 scholars enrolled in the first year of a French immersion program in a suburban high teach in Alberta, Canada. This collection of students had become involved in a French immersion pilot program in elementary and junior high teach and had made the choice to take the core courses of their high train credit program in their secondary language, Specifically, the purpose of the meditation was to provide an interpretation of to what degree the "lived experiences" of these pupils had influenced their decision to continue in the program after junior high educate Because parents helped make the initial choice for French immersion in elementary indoctrinate and many were involved when these children chose to continue the program in high institute it was assumed that the perspectives of the parents would assist in contextualizing the students' understandings of their experiences.