scholarly journals Preservation of Minority Languages in North America: French Immersion Programs in the Province of Alberta

2015 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 95-104
Author(s):  
Baltasar J. López Ruiz
2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Commissaire ◽  
Adrian Pasquarella ◽  
Becky Xi Chen ◽  
S. Hélène Deacon

Children learning to read in two languages are faced with orthographic features from both languages, either unique to a language or similar across languages. In the present study, we examined how children develop orthographic processing skills over time (from grade 1 to grade 2) with a sample of Canadian children attending a French immersion program and we investigated the underlying factor structure of orthographic skills across English and French. Two orthographic processing tasks were administered in both languages: lexical orthographic processing (e.g. choose the correct spelling from people–peeple) and sub-lexical orthographic processing (e.g. which is the more word-like vaid–vayd?), which included both language-specific and language-shared orthographic regularities. Children’s performances in sub-lexical tasks increased with grade but were comparable across languages. Further, evidence for a one factor model including all measures suggested that there is a common underlying orthographic processing skill that cuts across measurement and language variables. Keywords: orthographic processing; reading; French immersion; bilinguals; second language learners


1996 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan R. Karovitch ◽  
Bruce M. Shore ◽  
Marcia A. B. Delcourt

WORD ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 27 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 311-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Bruck ◽  
Jola Jakimik ◽  
G. Richard Tucker

1993 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Harley

Examining the role of instruction in second language acquisition (SLA) entails not only a specification of what aspects of SLA stand to be affected but also a clear conception of what is meant by instruction. In this paper the potential of various instructional strategies for promoting SLA among child second language (L2) learners is considered in relation to empirical findings in early French immersion programs. Several principles are proposed concerning the what, when, and how of code-focused L2 instruction in a communicatively oriented school-based acquisition context. These proposals need to be put to the test in further experimental research.


2008 ◽  
pp. 27-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Netten

Abstract This discussion will be divided into three sections. In the first, I wish to present for your consideration certain general principles of bilingual education which need to be taken into account in making decisions about entry into immersion programs. Secondly, we will examine the three major forms of immersion education, early, middle and late, to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each, and lastly, I will share with you my perceptions as to which point might be considered an optimal one for entry into French immersion.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 968-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaudia Krenca ◽  
Kathleen Hipfner-Boucher ◽  
Xi Chen

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: We explored the advantage of bilingualism and the effect of linguistic proximity on the acquisition of determiner-noun agreement, an aspect of inflectional morphology, in a French immersion setting. To our knowledge, third language acquisition literature has yet to provide evidence of a bilingual advantage in learning a particular feature of morphology in an additional language among young children. Design/methodology/approach: We compared accuracy in determiner-noun agreement on a narrative task in three groups of grade 1 and 2 students ( n = 15 in each group): a group of third language French learners whose first language marked gender, a group of third language French learners whose first language did not mark gender, and a group of English learners learning French as a second language. Data and analysis: If the determiner and the noun agreed in gender, gender on the determiner was considered correct. A repeated measures factorial ANCOVA was carried out to compare the performance among the three language groups on the proportion of correctly marked masculine and feminine nouns. Findings/conclusions: All of the children achieved high levels of accuracy on masculine nouns with no difference among the three language groups on the proportion of correctly marked masculine nouns. There was a significant difference in the proportion of correctly marked feminine nouns in favour of the group whose first language marks gender compared to the other two groups. Originality: The current study supports transfer in the domain of morphology among primary-school-aged children (who are first language speakers of diverse minority languages) in the early stages of third-language French acquisition. Significance/implications: This finding provides preliminary evidence of a bilingual advantage in the domain of morphology among young, emergent trilinguals whose first language and third language share gender marking as a linguistic feature, supporting the linguistic proximity model.


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