Exploring the longitudinal impact of university immersion: Bilingual spaces, multilingual values

Abstract

Research on public and high school French Immersion in Canada dates back to the 1970s while for higher education, it is still in its infancy. This article focuses on the French Immersion Stream (FIS) introduced in 2006 at the University of Ottawa which enables students to consolidate their knowledge of their second official language by completing 40% of their undergraduate studies in French. Drawing on an academic discourse socialization approach, this paper reports on a longitudinal case study of a trilingual student, Corina, enrolled in the FIS. Interviews over four years, questionnaires, language portraits and textual documents were used to study the impact of the program on her university trajectory. Findings highlight her linguistic and academic gains as well as the forces outside the classroom (e.g., linguistic insecurity and the impact of others' gaze) that both reinforced and challenged her emerging bilingual identity and vision of life beyond graduation. Implications focus on the importance when determining the impact of immersion programs of looking beyond institutional measures of success to also take into account immersion students’ interactions with the target language community and the degree to which it welcomes and encourages these learners.