So today I was at the park with the kids and two other moms came over to sit on my bench. One of the new moms said to the other that she looked familiar, and they quickly figured out that they both have a son of the same age that goes to W.O. Mitchell, which is the same local primary school that the Captain will be attending in September. It turns out that the two boys in question were in the same Grade 1 class — a French Immersion class. But after Grade 1, Mom1 pulled her son out of FI and put him into the English stream instead; Mom2 kept her kid in FI.
They started to talk about why Mom1 had pulled her son out, and why Mom2 had left her son in, and needless to say, I was VERY interested in this conversation. Unfortunately Mom1 clearly had a lot to say on the subject and a bit of a chip on her shoulder, so I didn’t hear too many “pro” arguments from Mom2, just a lot of ranting from Mom1. She took her son out of FI because he disliked his teacher so much that he was refusing to go to school, and when he was at school, he was refusing to speak French, even though his history of JK and SK all in French (at a different school) meant that he was already fairly familiar with the language. Since the teacher would only speak in French, though, and the kid hated it and refused to do it, there was a communication barrier that could not be overcome, so for Grade 2, they moved him into the English stream. I doubt this is a common case, but interesting nonetheless.
After listening to them talk, here are some new points I picked up:
- Some websites I have seen advocated putting your kid in FI to “see how it goes,” and then pulling them out after a year or two if it isn’t going well. But Mom1 says that her son is so behind now in English reading and comprehension, not having had the years it takes for the FI kids to “catch up,” that he has to have remedial reading classes and finds the English stream to be pretty challenging.
- Mom1 has her daughter in the English-only stream, and she claims that they start working on reading and spelling a year earlier — in SK, instead of mid-Grade 1. The faster start means that her daughter is now a much much better reader than her son, and is learning many things that the FI kids don’t even touch on for the first few years.
- Mom1 mentioned briefly that the school in question is considering getting late immersion, and might have it by the time her daughter (currently in SK) hits Grade 4.
So again, more stuff to think about. Can you tell though, that I am coming down on the con side? Can ya?
TurtleHead 
Well, as I said, if CJB goes into FI, you’ll have to do extra work at home to teach him reading and writing in English. It’s totally true that FI makes a kid weaker in English without extra help.
Did you introduce yourself to Mom2? Might be an idea, if you see her again. These types of people are exactly the people you need to talk to, and as much as you can, to get first-hand opinions on the subject. You could even go into the school and see if the teachers would give their opinion or give you the names of some parents who you might be able to talk to.
It is a big decision, so don’t feel bad about not knowing what you want yet or for working so hard to get the information you need.
I went through FI all the way through from SK to OAC and had a pretty good time at it. My only complaint with French education in English Canada, though is that it’s split between FI, which emphasizes spoken French at the expense of written French and Core French, which does the opposite. So, when I arrived in University, my French grammar was atrocious but I could talk a good game. It seems that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
My brother went through the whole, “pulled from FI and had to do remidial English thing”. He got through it o.k. but he was a bit behind for a few years.
It really seems to depend on the kid and the parents. I was a huge reader as a kid and so were my parents so I was ahead of the game in English reading even though I stuck with FI.
Thanks for the info, Hardcormier. Since you made it through law school — I assume in English? — that’s very reassuring to me in terms of your written and oral English grammar skills. Plus knowing you appreciate the experience is also very reassuring.
Why did your parents pull out your brother, though?
If I do see Mom2 again at the park, I think I’ll bring it up with her. Opinions on the “pro” side, especially from people with first-hand experience, are what I need to be able to feel good about putting him in FI.
I think the right thing to do is to try (ha!) to stop fretting about this, and wait and see how JK goes. Then his JK teacher will probably a) have some advice for us about the Captain personally, and b) be able to reassure us about some of our concerns, which I’m sure many parents share.
Yes, law school en français would have been a little much for me, though I did consider taking a course or two in French to see if I could handle it. Apparently Ottawa U lets you take courses in French and write your exams and assignments in English if you like. I would definitely say the experience was good for me overall. In my experience, people in FI had no more or less trouble in English than their core French or non-French studying compatriots.
My brother wasn’t pulled out deliberately. We moved from Winnipeg to Newmarket when he was in grade three or four and the Manitoba and Ontario systems weren’t really compatible. In Manitoba they do almost pure French for the first few years to get a good foundation and then switch aggressively into English to catch people up. The idea being that English is already your mother tongue so you get it by osmosis. In Ontario apparently they balance it out from the beginning. So he arrived on the scene in Newmarket with awesome French but almost no English. It was a bit of a rough time for a little while and he never ended up going back into French.
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C.Apana