Vaudrait-il mieux dire “oui” ou “non” au plan de M. Kelly Lamrock? The changes in New Brunswick’s French Second Language education system are the current subject of protest and heated debate all over this province. Will intensive grade-five French immersion make New Brunswick more bilingual, or is early immersion doing just fine? Let’s take a look at how second language education works in some other countries.

Many European countries start instruction in the mother tongue and later teach a second co-official language as well as a foreign language. Often two of the languages are taught through partial immersion, where half of the curriculum is taught in one language and half in the other. The third language would be taught in a separate course. The average number of foreign languages per person is 1.14 in Europe.

In Switzerland there are four official languages. The central and northern cantons speak predominantly German, while the western cantons speak French, the southern cantons speak Italian, and a smattering of regions in the east speak Romanche. That’s 64 per cent of the population with a German mother tongue, 20 per cent with French, 6.5 per cent Italian, and 0.5 per cent Romanic. This is reflected accordingly in the school system.

There are 26 cantons that make up Switzerland, each with a different education system. However, there are some unifying factors. The second language is introduced, at latest, in the third year of education, while the third language in introduced in the fifth year.
The language of instruction and second national language depend on the school’s location in Switzerland. This is similar to the Canadian system. For example, in a predominantly German canton all the public schools would teach German as the mother tongue, and French as a second language, while the reverse would occur in a predominantly French canton. However, Italian and Romanche are typically underrepresented in the system

Early immersion occurs if a family lives in a canton where people who speak their mother tongue are the minority. But early immersion is not specifically used to teach foreign languages in Switzerland. Therefore, the average number of foreign languages per person is 2.

New Zealand has an early immersion system which is similar to the Canadian system. Schools with early immersion in te reo Maori and Maori language programs receive additional funding from the government. There are kohanga reo (Maori kindergarten), kura kaupapa (Maori primary and secondary schools), and wananga (higher learning institutions), which immerse Maori students in te reo Maori while still following the state curriculum. These Maori immersion schools are the main force behind the revival of the Maori language.

There are also mainstream bilingual and immersion Maori classes. Most New Zealand students will study te reo Maori at some point in school.

In a study by the Centre for Applied Linguistics, there is evidence that most countries with strong multi-linguistic skills use early and compulsory immersion in one or two languages.

However, it was also found that highly skilled teachers contribute to language learning. In Morocco, English teachers are some of the most highly trained teachers in the country. In Finland, teaching is a really competitive profession so the process to get into teacher’s college is extremely rigorous.

In the United States, second language proficiency is remarkably low. Many students don’t start learning a second language until high school and only practice speaking the new language in that class.

Second language proficiency seems to come from the necessity to speak the language. This is the type of environment that immersion imitates.

Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages, said, “Early Immersion has been very successful in other provinces, and I have always believed that it is important to have a range of options available for young people to learn their other official language.”