‘French is Fun’ is the message little tots and parents received while dancing and prancing around the gym at Ecole Roosevelt on Jan. 16 in an introduction to French immersion weekly open-house.
Three weekly sessions are being held on Monday mornings to introduce parents and pre-schoolers to the advantages of bilingual education. The final 45-minute session of this series will be on Monday, Jan. 30 and is open to anyone who is curious. (There is no school on Jan. 23.) An introduction to the national language is taught through play and interactive activities.
Parents were also invited to one of twin evening information meetings being held at the school on Jan. 18 and 19 starting at 7 p.m.
Open registration for the School District 52 French immersion program starts Feb. 1, at the school and is open to all children who are turning five years old by Dec. 31, 2023, Andrée Michaud, school principal for the past eight years, said.
Parents and families do not need to speak French for children to be enrolled in the program. Children learning the language pick it up quickly, even if it’s not spoken at home, Michaud said. Many of the teachers at the school went through the FI program themselves with families who did not speak French and they have become successful educators.
Currently, there are 178 students in SD 52 who are enrolled in FI from kindergarten (KG) to Grade 12. Generally, the class sizes may be a bit smaller and children benefit from the social aspect of it by building lifelong relationships with other students who grow alongside them in the same cohort.
“Classmates become family and they remain friends after school,” the principal said. “There is an osmosis in the classroom that makes them friends for life.”
The French immersion starts in KG at Roosevelt and continues until Grade 5, when the students transition to middle school for Grades 6, 7 and 8, followed by four years of high school.
Enrollment for the program saw 18 register for kindergarten in 2021 and numbers were down in 2022 to 11 newbies. This may be due to COVID-19 and parents keeping their children home.
One great thing about the program is it also offers before and after-school care. Spaces have been reserved for new registrants at the next-door Westview Child Care facility until June.
A child’s development is often more advanced as they use different parts of their brain to learn additional languages.
While kindergarten is the prescribed starting grade, Michaud said students who are in Grade 1 may still be accepted into the program after a conversation with the principal, as well she said they have accepted students of older ages who need an “extra challenge” in their education plan who have been very successful in the program.
The program uses the ‘sandwich method’ of teaching and learning. This means an instruction, direction or comment is provided in English, then provided in French and then again in English.
“We use a lot of large gestures, lots of pictures with colour. When the students become more familiar with the language, English is slowly dropped and French is used more,” Michaud said.
Patrick Witiwiki, executive director of Association des francophones et francophiles (AFFNO), a non-profit organization offering french language support to the community, said the French immersion program is immensely important in smaller rural communities like Prince Rupert.
“The biggest benefit for the children who are enrolled in French immersion is there is much more opportunity in Canada (and beyond) for someone who is bilingual,” he said.
“For our community, it is just as important for professionals who might be thinking of moving to a Northern community. Education and opportunity are important for their families, and being able to offer a strong French immersion program is a win-win for everyone,” the executive director said.