Abstract
The scarcity of research on French immersion teachers’ professional identity contrasts with the increasing popularity of French immersion programs in Canada and the concomitant need for French immersion teachers. This study explores the professional identity negotiation of four French immersion teachers in Alberta, Canada, with a focus on discontinuity. Semi-structured interviews conducted face-to-face with the participants were analysed using dialogic narrative analysis. The findings highlight how discontinuity is occasioned by a change in knowledge about the French immersion teaching as a profession, encountering classroom realities, shifting one’s values concerning second language learning and the emotions one experiences in moments of discontinuity. A negative change in emotion may encourage discontinuity in immersion teacher identity and teachers’ understanding of themselves as second language learners. On the other hand, positive emotions underline the harboured passion for French and second language learning and may help re-align French immersion teacher identity to the sense of purpose teachers identified in their professional lives. The study concludes with a discussion of certain considerations arising from the data.
Highlights
66 Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies questions of language identity development and cultural heritage to the fore in ways not necessarily addressed in the curriculum-based approaches of CBI and CLIL
The increasing popularity of French immersion programs in Canada reflects the widespread belief of bilingualism as a social advantage for Canadians (Alberta Government, 2014; Horner & Weber, 2017; Roy, 2010)
The identity narratives of the four participants included significant moments of change and discontinuity accompanied by a range of emotions
Summary
The increasing popularity of French immersion programs in Canada reflects the widespread belief of bilingualism as a social advantage for Canadians (Alberta Government, 2014; Horner & Weber, 2017; Roy, 2010). The goal of immersion education in Canada is additive bilingualism, meaning that the students learn their second language at no cost to their first language through content (Vanderveen, 2015). French immersion aims to create an encouraging language learning environment conducive to functional fluency by the end of grade 12, and to encourage post-matriculation bilingual studies and use of both languages in personal and professional settings (Alberta Government, 2014). As the majority of French immersion students speak another language at home, French can become a “school” language confined to and promoted within the school environment, with few opportunities to engage with French outside of school. There are no statistics on the number of graduates of the French immersion program and their level of French proficiency at the time of graduation
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