Recently, we have asked our Kindergarten to 8 French Immersion staff to answer the following question: What does a high-quality French Immersion program look like and sound like? We received a wealth of responses from our staff members. I also participated in the process. Here is the list that I created:
A high quality French Immersion program looks like:
- A wide range of students with differing needs and abilities are participating and learning an additional language
- The teacher uses frequent formative assessment strategies to determine student ability and knowledge of content and language
- Students learn from a range of explicit and inductive instructional experiences to enable their unique learning styles and intelligence types
- Students work independently or cooperatively in small groups at authentic tasks and explore personal wonders that link the curriculum and the real world that are developmentally appropriate to their learning and or language needs
- Instruction and tasks develops students language proficiency
- Students are exposed to multiple rich language models inside and outside of the classroom during the entire school day and interact frequently and meaningfully with the francophone world
- Students are exposed to excellent diverse learning resources (print and non-print) that are appropriate to their learning and language needs
- Students engage in learning the language and grammar through authentic communication situations and tasks that are context specific and content rich
- Students use the language as a tool to structure cognitive processes and as a communicative tool to interact orally frequently with a range of peers for a range of purposes
- Students draw extensively on their background knowledge of content and language and self-assess their use of strategies, ability, skills, or knowledge according to visible co-constructed developmental continuums
- Students receive a range of timely supports in French inside and outside of the classroom
- The language is used as a tool to structure cognitive processes and as a communication tool in frequent interactions with a range of peers
- The language is used a tool to structure cognitive processes
- Students read and write a range of fiction and non-fiction texts (in print and non-print)
- Students feel free to take risk in their learning and communication
A high quality French Immersion program sounds like:
- The teacher only speaks French to students using vocabulary and structures that are slightly beyond their zone of proximal language development, even if the content is cognitively demanding and uses instructional strategies to ensure that students can access language and content
- The students only speak French to the teacher and peers and use disciplinary vocabulary, communication methods and language patterns in appropriate contexts
- Students communicate among themselves using authentic and socially appropriate language
- The students have sophisticated methods to overcome unknown French words when communicating and continue to use the target language despite slight difficulties
- The classroom has a continuous buzz of French communication (may appear noisy)
- Learning targets can be heard being stated by the teacher and students and students can express their current ability level, explain specific things they can do to improve and their preferred strategies to seek support
- Multiple language models are available to students
- Students progress through developmental language stages and continue to improve their ability to express ideas, thoughts and fluency in the target language through a range of authentic tasks
- Students ask and answer a range of questions (simple/closed to complex/open)
- Students frequently receive immediate positive or negative feedback about their oral production and have the chance to immediately improve their message
- Students develop and refine implicit grammar structures when communicating authentically during tasks
