French-language Schools Research Articles

Choosing the Language of Instruction for One's Children

It is not unusual in Quebec to find English-Canadian parents sending their children to French language schools and French-Canadian parents sending their children to English language schools. Why some parents decide on this form of language experience for their children was the focus of this investigation. Examined in some detail were the ethnic identity patterns and motivations of selected subgroups of French-and English-Canadian parents, who were compared with parents who send their children to "other"' language schools with those whose children attend schools where the home language is used as the medium of instruction. All parents agreed on the benefits of bilingualism in occupational and educational matters. In contrast, particular subsets of parents, depending on their ethnicity, the community they come from, and the decision they make about schooling for their children, have distinctive constellations of personal motivations and ethnic allegiances. Clearly, people perceive different costs and rewards associated with choice of language of schooling; this decision, furthermore, has implications not only for the relationships within the family, but for the established network of social relationships within the community.

Taalvaardigheid, attitudes en motivatie van Nederlandstalige en Franstalige leerlingen in het Nederlandstalig onderwijs in Brussel

In Brussels, parents can freely choose to enrol their children in either Dutchor French language schools. In many cases, and increasingly so, Francophoneparents prefer the Durch language education system which they believe willprovide their children a bilingual learning experience. This influx of predominantlyFrench-speaking, as well as other non-Dutch-speaking pupils, hasresulted in a linguistically diverse, rather than a predominantly Dutch-speakingpupil population in Dutch language schools in Brussels. As a consequence,a form of non-structured immersion education has materialized,which tends to be perceived as problematic and even detrimental to the languagelearning process.Earlier cross-sectional research into the language proficiency, attitudes andmotivations of Dutch and French-speaking pupils in Dutch language schoolsin Brussels (Housen, Mettewie & Pierrard 2004; Mettewie, 2004), has shownthat Dutch-speaking pupils have similar language proficiency levels, as well asattitudes and motivations, as their Flemish peers. It further demonstrated thatthe Dutch language or L2 proficiency of the French-speaking pupils equalsthe Dutch-speaking pupils' Dutch or L1 (1st language) proficiency in mostdomains of language proficiency. These French-speaking pupils in additiondisplayed more positive attitudes and srronger motivation towards the L2 (2ndlanguage) learning process.The current longitudinal research followed up on two cohorts of Dutchand French-speaking pupils during three consecutive school years (2001,2002 and 2003), in order to study the long-term development of their languageproficiencies, as well as their social-psychological orientation towardsFrench and Dutch. It also investigated the relationship between both theselatent constructs. The ultimate goal of this research is to determine to whatextent such a form of non-structured immersion education leads to bilingualproficiency, and how attitudes and motivation relate to this process in thelong term.