French Immersion Students Research Articles

Training 8-Year-Old French Immersion Students in Metalinguistic Analysis: An Innovation in Form-focused Pedagogy

Most research on language awareness in a second language (L2) has been carried out with adult learners. This research presents data showing that pedagogical techniques can be devised enabling children as young as 8 to develop metalinguistic awareness of their emerging L2 system. Building on existing work by Canadian researchers, this classroom-based study investigated tasks designed to encourage young learners to develop language awareness through repair and analysis of their errors. Forty-three 8- to 9-year-old children in a Montreal French immersion class were prompted by the teacher-researcher to correct their non-target-like utterances. Corrective feedback was provided on lexical, phonological and grammatical errors, and on uses of L1. While watching their videotaped oral presentations, participants were guided to notice and repair errors through group discussion. Results indicated that through group interaction, young children were able to notice and repair errors, to identify language features involved, to negotiate form and to do grammatical analysis of the errors.

Avantages linguistiques, scolaires et cognitifs de l'immersion française

Abstract: A survey of research on French as a second language (FSL) education in Canada suggests that French immersion (FI) students enjoy significant linguistic, academic, and cognitive benefits. We organize our summary of the advantages of FI around these three themes, comparing students’ proficiency in French and English across various FI programs, and assessing their overall academic achievement. Our review shows that FI programs enable students to develop high levels of proficiency in both French and English, at no cost to their academic success. Cognitive research associates bilingualism with heightened mental flexibility and creative thinking skills, enhanced metalinguistic awareness, and greater communicative sensitivity. Because cognitive benefits are contingent on a bilingual learner's proficiency in both languages, it may be that FI programs, which promote heightened proficiency in both French and English, foster in their students an underlying cognitive advantage.

Linguistic, Academic, and Cognitive Benefits of French Immersion

Abstract: A survey of research on French as a second language (FSL) education in Canada suggests that French immersion (FI) students enjoy significant linguistic, academic, and cognitive benefits. We organize our summary of the advantages of FI around these three themes, comparing students’ proficiency in French and English across various FI programs, and assessing their overall academic achievement. Our review shows that FI programs enable students to develop high levels of proficiency in both French and English, at no cost to their academic success. Cognitive research associates bilingualism with heightened mental flexibility and creative thinking skills, enhanced metalinguistic awareness, and greater communicative sensitivity. Because cognitive benefits are contingent on a bilingual learner's proficiency in both languages, it may be that FI programs, which promote heightened proficiency in both French and English, foster in their students an underlying cognitive advantage.

French Immersion and At-Risk Students: A Review of Research Evidence

Abstract: This report reviews results of research on the outcomes of French immersion students with special educational needs related to low levels of general academic ability and low levels of first language ability (and possibly impairment), as well as those of students with difficulty or who are at risk for difficulty in learning to read. Studies of the effectiveness of interventions for such students are also reviewed and analyzed. The report ends with suggestions for future research and educational policy.

Immersion française et élèves à risques: revue des données de recherche

Abstract: This report reviews results of research on the outcomes of French immersion students with special educational needs related to low levels of general academic ability and low levels of first language ability (and possibly impairment), as well as those of students with difficulty or who are at risk for difficulty in learning to read. Studies of the effectiveness of interventions for such students are also reviewed and analyzed. The report ends with suggestions for future research and educational policy.

Learning to Speak Everyday (Canadian) French

This article examines the sociolinguistic competence of French immersion students. We first present an overview of the range of variation found in L1 speech and make a distinction between vernacular, informal, formal, and hyper-formal variants. We then compare the use of these forms in the speech of Canadian francophones and Grade 9 and 12 students enrolled in a French immersion program. Our analysis shows that the immersion students' sociolinguistic competence is lacking in that they rarely or never use vernacular and informal variants and overuse forms that are formal or hyper-formal. In order to address this shortcoming, we propose a pedagogical methodology for improving students' sociolinguistic competence, concentrating in particular on the need to increase students' use of informal variants (e.g., ne deletion and /l/ deletion) and to decrease their use of hyper-formal ones (e.g., the verb habiter and subject pronoun nous).

Reformulation: the cognitive conflict and L2 learning it generates

This paper provides evidence of the role of cognitive conflict in the process of learning a second language. Twelve grade 7 French immersion students participated in a multi-stage task that provided them with the opportunity to discuss the reformulation of a text they had written. Through a pre-test and post-test design, it is demonstrated that the reformulation of the students’ own writing, an opportunity to notice the changes, and a subsequent stimulated recall provided opportunities for learning: they presented the students with cognitive conflicts that prompted the students to articulate differences between the two texts and discuss the reformulation. The students were also interviewed, which provided insights into their own learning experiences.

Learning to Speak Everyday (Canadian) French

This article examines the sociolinguistic competence of French immersion students. We first present an overview of the range of variation found in L1 speech and make a distinction between vernacular, informal, formal, and hyper-formal variants. We then compare the use of these forms in the speech of Canadian francophones and Grade 9 and 12 students enrolled in a French immersion program. Our analysis shows that the immersion students' sociolinguistic competence is lacking in that they rarely or never use vernacular and informal variants and overuse forms that are formal or hyper-formal. In order to address this shortcoming, we propose a pedagogical methodology for improving students' sociolinguistic competence, concentrating in particular on the need to increase students' use of informal variants (e.g., ne deletion and /l/ deletion) and to decrease their use of hyper-formal ones (e.g., the verb habiter and subject pronoun nous).

What Underlies Immersion Students' Production: The Case Of Avoir Besoin De

Abstract: One of the advantages of having students work in pairs on language‐related tasks is that teachers and researchers can listen to what the students say as they carry out their assigned tasks. What they say offers insights into the students' beliefs about the target language they are learning and using, and reflects the cognitive processes they use to produce an utterance. In this paper, we analyze dialogues between pairs of eighth grade French immersion students about avoir besoin de. Our analysis provides insights that allow teachers to help students more accurately encode the meaning they wish to express. Teachers and researchers are also given an insiders view of how learners make use of what they already know to support their learning of an additional language.

Comprehension Monitoring in First and Second Language Reading

This paper reports the results of a cross-lingual study on the role of comprehension monitoring in L1 (English) and L2 (French) reading proficiency. Fifty-two undergraduate students from two FSL backgrounds, French immersion (FI) and core French (CF), were given reading comprehension tests as well a monitoring task in both languages. Results showed that successful monitoring, as measured by error detection performance at the discourse and propositional levels, transfers across languages, and that monitoring performance is highly correlated with reading proficiency in both languages. Though students with a FI background performed significantly better at L2 propositional-level monitoring, there was no difference between the FI and CF students in any other aspect of the monitoring tasks. Finally, with respect to the variables that best predicted L2 reading comprehension, there appeared to be important differences between the FI and CF students who participated in this study.

Early Identification of At-Risk L2 Readers

The present study examined which measures best identify English-speaking French immersion (FI) students at risk of future reading difficulties in French and English. Using reading scores taken in both languages at the end of Grade 1 and beginning of Grade 2, typical and poor reader groups were identified. Measures taken at the beginning of Grade 1 in tasks evaluating phonological abilities in English were used to determine group membership. Predictive discriminant analysis showed that performance on phoneme blending and sound isolation tasks identified poor and typical readers in English, while phoneme blending, sound isolation, and Rapid Naming identified poor and typical readers in French. These results can be used to identify new cases for the purpose of early reading interventions.

Acquisition of the internal and external constraints of variable schwa deletion by French immersion students

This article is one among a series of studies on the acquisition of patterns of linguistic variation observable in the speech of native speakers of Canadian French by French immersion (FI) students. The present study is centred on deletion of the central vowel schwa, a widespread feature of casual spoken French. In this study, FI students are compared with same age native speakers of Ontario French. Our study has arrived at the following main findings: (i) FI students delete schwa much less frequently than do the speakers of Ontario French; (ii) FI students observe the same phonetic constraints that influence schwa deletion in native Ontario French; (iii) FI students do not observe the constraint of topic formality which is observable in native Ontario French; and (iv) FI students who have had extracurricular contacts with native speakers of French display higher rates of schwa deletion than the FI students who have not had such contacts.

Comprehension Monitoring in First and Second Language Reading

This paper reports the results of a cross-lingual study on the role of comprehension monitoring in L1 (English) and L2 (French) reading proficiency. Fifty-two undergraduate students from two FSL backgrounds, French immersion (FI) and core French (CF), were given reading comprehension tests as well a monitoring task in both languages. Results showed that successful monitoring, as measured by error detection performance at the discourse and propositional levels, transfers across languages, and that monitoring performance is highly correlated with reading proficiency in both languages. Though students with a FI background performed significantly better at L2 propositional-level monitoring, there was no difference between the FI and CF students in any other aspect of the monitoring tasks. Finally, with respect to the variables that best predicted L2 reading comprehension, there appeared to be important differences between the FI and CF students who participated in this study.

Early Identification of At-Risk L2 Readers

The present study examined which measures best identify English-speaking French immersion (FI) students at risk of future reading difficulties in French and English. Using reading scores taken in both languages at the end of Grade 1 and beginning of Grade 2, typical and poor reader groups were identified. Measures taken at the beginning of Grade 1 in tasks evaluating phonological abilities in English were used to determine group membership. Predictive discriminant analysis showed that performance on phoneme blending and sound isolation tasks identified poor and typical readers in English, while phoneme blending, sound isolation, and Rapid Naming identified poor and typical readers in French. These results can be used to identify new cases for the purpose of early reading interventions.

Sex and Age Effects on Willingness to Communicate, Anxiety, Perceived Competence, and L2 Motivation Among Junior High School French Immersion Students

The students who participate in immersion education are an impressive group. In the present study we looked at students in a junior high school in Nova Scotia. In the local area, English is far and away the dominant language, though there are French‐speaking communities within a 2‐hr drive and Canada is an officially bilingual country. Therefore, the students are not in a “foreign” language‐learning environment, but in all probability, they are not likely to encounter spoken French in their daily lives. The students have all the challenges of adolescence to contend with: moving from an elementary to a junior high school in grade 7, the wonders of puberty, growing academic expectations from teachers, demands from school administration to speak only French while at school, and the burgeoning social life of a newly minted teenager. On top of all this, participants in this research are required to give up their well‐developed native language, English, and undertake to be educated in a second language, French. Impressive.The present study reports a cross‐sectional investigation of second language communication among students in a junior high French late immersion program. The effects of language, sex, and grade on willingness to communicate (WTC), anxiety, perceived communication competence, and frequency of communication in French and on attitude/motivation variables are examined globally and at each grade level. Most of these variables have been widely studied among adult learners, most often at the university level. The present study attempted to look at a much younger group to examine the patterns earlier in the language learning process.We found that students’ second language WTC, perceived competence, and frequency of communication in French increased from grades 7 to 8 and that these increases were maintained between grades 8 and 9, despite a drop in motivation between grades 7 and 8 and a steady level of anxiety across the three grades. Gender differences in language anxiety were observed across the three grades. Contrary to our expectations, compared to girls, boys reported more anxiety in grade 9. However, the differences between WTC across the first and second language narrowed as students progressed through the program. [The present article first appeared in Language Learning, 52(3), 2002, 537–564]

Attitudes, Orientations, and Motivations in Language Learning: Advances in Theory, Research, and Applications

* Attitudes, Orientations, and Motivations in Language Learning: Advances in Theory, Research, and Applications: Zoltan Dornyei. * Why Are You Learning a Second Language? Motivational Orientations and Self--Determination Theory (Language Learning, 2000, 50/1, 57--85): Kimberly A. Noels, Luc G. Pelletier, Richard Clement and Robert J. Vallerand. * The Role of Gender and Immersion in Communication and Second Language Orientations (Language Learning, 2000, 50/2, 311--341): Susan C. Baker and Peter D. MacIntyre. * Learning Spanish as a Second Language: Learners' Orientations and Perceptions of Their Teachers' Communication Style (Language Learning, 2001, 51/1, 107--144): Kimberly A. Noels. * Sex and Age Effects on Willingness to Communicate, Anxiety, Perceived Competence, and L2 Motivation Among Junior High School French Immersion Students (Language Learning, 2002, 52/3, 537--564): Peter D. MacIntyre, Susan C. Baker, Richard Clement and Leslie A. Donovan. * Attitudes, Motivation, and Second Language Learning: A Meta--Analysis of Studies Conducted by Gardner and Associates (Language Learning, 2003, 53/1): Anne--Marie Masgoret and Robert C. Gardner.

Grade 6 French Immersion Students' Performance on Large-Scale Reading, Writing, and Mathematics Tests: Building Explanations

We analyzed data from Ontario's provincial testing program to ascertain if the reading, writing, and mathematics skills of grade 6 immersion students were comparable to those of regular English program students. Various immersion program designs were taken into account. The analysis confirms the results of earlier program evaluations that any lags in immersion students' achievement in reading, writing, and math disappear by grade 6. We offer two explanations to account for this result. The lag explanation holds that taking reading, writing, and math in French until the end of grade 3 creates a lag in achievement until English is introduced into the curriculum, after which immersion students catch up to regular students' performance. The selection explanation suggests that immersion test performance improves by grade 6 relative to regular English program counterparts because the composition of the grade 6 cohort is more select than that of earlier cohorts.

Grade 6 French Immersion Students' Performance on Large-Scale Reading, Writing, and Mathematics Tests: Building Explanations.

We analyzed data from Ontario's provincial testing program to ascertain if the reading, writing, and mathematics skills of grade 6 immersion students were comparable to those of regular English program students. Various immersion program designs were taken into account. The analysis confirms the results of earlier program evaluations that any lags in immersion students' achievement in reading, writing, and math disappear by grade 6. We offer two explanations to account for this result. The lag explanation holds that taking reading, writing, and math in French until the end of grade 3 creates a lag in achievement until English is introduced into the curriculum, after which immersion students catch up to regular students' performance. The selection explanation suggests that immersion test performance improves by grade 6 relative to regular English program counterparts because the composition of the grade 6 cohort is more select than that of earlier cohorts.

THE LEARNING OF SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION BY ADVANCED FSL LEARNERS

This paper synthesizes research on the acquisition of linguistic variation by learners of French as a second language—an overview that, to our knowledge, is the first of its kind. It also presents a case study on French immersion students' acquisition of the pronouns nous and on “we,” an alternation in many varieties of spoken French. The study shows that the students use the mildly marked variant on slightly more often than the formal variant nous but much less often than native speakers (who use it almost categorically) and immersion teachers (who strongly favor it). Female and middle-class students favor nous, students with greater extracurricular French language exposure favor on, and students who speak a Romance language at home favor nous. Various explanations are proposed for these correlations. Finally, the students, like L1 Francophones, favor on in linguistic contexts in which the referent is both nonspecific and unrestricted.

Reformulation and the Learning of French Pronominal Verbs in a Canadian French Immersion Context

In this article, we examine a subset of collaborative dialogues that occurred in a multistage task where 8 Canadian grade 7 French immersion students worked together in pairs. Each pair wrote a story, noticed differences between their text and a reformulator's revision of that text, and reflected on their noticing. We analyze the transcripts of their talk in these 3 task sessions, identifying and describing the language‐related episodes. We trace the development of the target language (French), with specific reference to pronominal verbs, from the learners' first collaborative draft to their posttests. The study explores task differences and differences between lower‐ and higher‐proficiency dyads. The language‐related episodes selected for close analysis, along with the posttest data, provide evidence that in most cases, learners have progressed in their correct use of pronominal verbs in French.