Excellent editorial

today in the Globe and Mail which begins

“Quashing” is a technical, but pleasingly expressive word for what happened to an ill-considered decision to phase out early French immersion (EFI) in New Brunswick, Canada’s most genuinely bilingual province, and our only officially bilingual one.

and concludes

Canada leads the world in French immersion, and hitherto New Brunswick led Canada in providing it. The provincial government must now engage in genuine consultation, and the result should not be a forgone conclusion. It has an opportunity to reconsider its rushed ending of this valuable program.

Hear hear.

A beautiful essay

by Rita Parikh in the Globe and Mail: “Early immersion is a beautiful thing.” It opens:

“Maman, j’ai une moustache de chocolat,” my chocolate-smeared seven-year-old says with a laugh. Although he’s been in French immersion for just two years, the words come easily and his accent rings true.

Sage is the beneficiary of a stunningly successful experiment in British Columbia – one based in research, faith and, in no small part, beauty.

In contrast, the New Brunswick government’s recent decision to eliminate early French immersion and replace it with “intensive French” is only ugly.

Intensive French is a wonderful program, and it should replace the way most Canadians haplessly struggle to learn French. In its innovative ability to stimulate a love of language and instill basic confidence, this approach is unparalleled. However, it was never designed to produce bilingual graduates – immersion is the only program truly designed to achieve that goal.

Media attention

continues unabated:

• Montreal Gazette: “New Brunswick takes a step backward” and “N.B. cutting French immersion program could spark language tensions“
• The Globe and Mail has had excellent coverage: “‘We want to be bilingual!’ ‘We love French!’”; “Anger mounts over French immersion cuts“; “Immersion delayed, immersion denied“; “N.B. schools scrap early French immersion“; and more. Download a PDF.
• Parents of students in the Francophone system have concerns (Daily Gleaner)
• Letters today in the Telegraph-Journal, Daily Gleaner, Times&Transcript

More from

the Globe and Mail editorial from yesterday:

The real problem in New Brunswick appears to be that the government is not willing to train and hire enought qualified teachers.

New Brunswick, like the island of Montreal, is one part of Canada where bilingualism can be a lived reality, and French immersion is a program in which our country leads the world. It will be a grave national setback if the Fredericton government does not change its mind.

Immersion delayed, immersion denied

The Globe and Mail has an editorial today which begins

The speed with which small children can pick up a language is hardly disputable. Countless people on this planet observe it every day. Again and again, solid research has confirmed the phenomenon. Yet the government of the only province in Canada that has declared itself officially bilingual is acting in defiance of this gift of nature. This month, New Brunswick announced that it will wind down the French immersion program in the early grades of Anglophone schools.

And, an excellent commentary in the Times&Transcript by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau.

See the letters in the Telegraph-Journal and The Daily Gleaner.

And Robert Macleod in the T-J also asks, where’s Shawn?

But is the provincial government listening? No. And apparently, there is even more to come.

This government

takes a completely adversarial stance. To the citizenry, certainly: look at how Kelly Lamrock is deliberately stirring up the old language debates. You don’t think so? Just take a look at the comments sections of almost any online article on French immersion: all the French-bashing yahoos are feeling safe enough to come out of the woodwork. Certainly this government are adversarial to anyone with any real expertise, no doubt in an effort to protect their own tame “experts” — Croll, Lee, and Miner and L’Écuyer on post-secondary education — who need all the help they can get. And they are adversarial to those with the most investment in the things they so blithely want to change: teachers are gagged and, we have heard, have begun to get transfers or pink slips; parents are ignored; and the Minster is quoted in the national newspaper as saying that “My job isn’t to make people of doctorates feel good.” (File that under “just as well.”)

With such a long and comprehensive list of opponents, you have to wonder who they think they are doing it for. That elusive creature, the “taxpayer”? Well, we’ve got news for them: we are the taxpayers.

Some recent media stories

Here is an interesting news story: “Ottawa urged to put $1-billion into official languages” (Globe and Mail, March 20/08). Talk about being out of step!

In local news, four Saint John doctors are considering leaving the region because of the loss of early French immersion; this at a time when New Brunswick is crying for doctors. It does make you wonder if the different government ministers even talk to one-another.

And, on YouTube:

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