This study evaluates the extent to which syntactic awareness contributes to reading comprehension in English-French bilinguals, considering both the potential for a direct relation, as well as an indirect one, through word reading. Participants were 146 first-grade students enrolled in early French immersion programs in Canada. While the children…

This study seeks to examine the success of voluntary immigrants in Grade 6 French immersion with a double comparison to Canadian-born (a) Anglophones and (b) multilingual students (children of voluntary immigrants). The findings, that show the immigrant students to outperform the other two groups in French and English, are explored through a…

The present mixed-methods study examined the role of learner appraisals of speech tasks in second language (L2) French fluency. Forty adult learners in a Canadian immersion program participated in the study that compared four sources of data: (1) objectively measured utterance fluency in participants' performances of three narrative tasks…

Responding to the needs of and/or including students with different need profiles has been an area of focus within Canadian French Second Language (FSL) education for many years. This study draws on quantitative data from two questionnaires (administered before and after Canadian teacher candidates in FSL education completed their practica) and on…

While the research literature on second language (L2) fluency is replete with descriptions of fluency and its influence with regard to English as an additional language, little is known about what fluency features influence judgments of fluency in L2 French. This study reports the results of an investigation that analyzed the relationship between…

This paper addresses a niche in studies on immersion programmes for English as second language learners. While studies on the impact of the experience of studying abroad are replete with reports about the enhancement of participants' language proficiency or intercultural skills, the present study investigates the types of language and culture…

Many times summer language immersion administrators and instructors overlook the rich collections housed in various town libraries. Students of French immersion programs have an opportunity to utilize local libraries. This essay describes the facilities and services of five libraries in La Pocatiere, Quebec. A series of interviews of librarians…

This preliminary report of the 1988 Manitoba Writing Assessment Program contains a summary of student performance for the provincial sample as a whole. The report is based on a systematic random sample (a total of 186 papers) consisting of 20% of all students enrolled in grade 8 Language Arts in French Immersion programs. Chapter 1 describes the…

This preliminary report of the 1988 Manitoba Writing Assessment Program contains a summary of student performance in grade 11 for the provincial sample as a whole. The report is based on 177 test papers from students enrolled in English 200 or English 201 in French Immersion programs. The first chapter describes the spelling exercise, the process…

This document (two manuals combined) offers a practical, straightforward means of evaluating the reading level of students in French immersion classes at the elementary level. The evaluator's manual features a good review of the relevant publications in the field and provides clear, detailed descriptions of each of three reading levels, the…

This final report is the second of three reports (Preliminary, Final, and Summary) of the findings of the 1988 Provincial Writing Assessment in Manitoba, Canada for grades 4, 8, and 11 of French Immersion schools. It contains an overview of the purposes, procedures, and a detailed presentation of the findings and recommendations of the Writing…

An evaluation of Manitoba's French immersion programs at the levels of grades 3, 6, and 9 focused on program effectiveness in teaching listening comprehension and speech skills. The results for grade 6 are presented here. The first section describes the framework of the immersion curriculum and the listening and oral skills targeted in it. The…

A French-English guide to French diagnostic reading tests for French immersion classes, grades one through three, is presented. The "tests diagnostiques de lecture" are designed to indicate strengths and weaknesses in silent reading performance in French for early French immersion pupils in Canada and to integrate this information into…

The 1991 Manitoba Health Education Assessment consisted of the grade-4 health education test, a survey of grade-4 teachers, and the comparison of student performance in grades 5 and 10 from 1982 to 1991. The grade-4 sample consisted of 10% of students from English language schools, all students in Franco-Manitoban schools, and 25% of all students…

Results of a provincial survey of Manitoba's French immersion program graduates are reported. The two most recent cohorts of graduates (1987-88 and 1988-89) from nine secondary schools were surveyed, with 225 respondents. Three introductory sections describe the study's background and purpose, methodology, and interpretation. The fourth section…