This study examines the impact of teachers' professional development on Canadian allophone students' learning and reading performance levels. We used the data from the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program 2016 involving Grade 8/Secondary II Canadian allophone students (N = 2,244) and teachers in French and English Language Arts (N = 598). Our…

This study investigates the effects of an alternative approach to grade retention, known as a "remediation measure." This measure was tested in 2010-2011 in two high schools in Quebec (Canada) and its effects on students' achievement motivation were analyzed. Specifically, the evolution of general and domain-specific expectancy and value…

In this study, I investigate the use of applied theatre with French Immersion Grade 8 students to better understand social justice issues. Through unstructured interviews, four participants were asked to recall their past experiences participating in applied theatre projects as a learning experience and as a process to better understand social…

This study examined the cross-lagged relationships between students' autonomous motivations (intrinsic motivation and identified regulations) and approach goals (mastery and performance) in school. The sample included 449 students (52% girls) in Grades 7 and 8 (secondary 1 and 2). Results showed that intrinsic motivation (IM) positively predicted…

French second language education, including the option of one-way French immersion, is mandated for majority-language Anglophone children in New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province. Language ideological debates in the province surrounding official English--French bilingualism led us to investigate adolescent majority-language…

French immersion (FI), one of the hallmarks of French as a Second Language education in Canada and mandated in New Brunswick, Canada's only officially English/French bilingual province, is often the target of language ideological debates surrounding its purposes and expected outcomes. Yet, notably absent in FI scholarship has been a focus on the…

This paper looks at reading in French immersion and how learning French is seen more as a skill rather than a social practice that could be examined through a more critical lens. Most of the teachers often teach students how to read but rarely will they discuss the role of French in Canadian society and how this is manifested in the texts they…

This mixed-method study examines the proficiency in and perceptions of French language learning of Grade 8 students who were exposed to an instructional approach called the Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM). Six AIM classes (n = 125) and six non-AIM classes (n = 135) were observed and their students tested using a four-skills French as a second…

The question of access to French-immersion programs has become a timely subject in Canada as a result of shifting political priorities, cutbacks, and growing concern around finding the most efficient way to teach French as a second language (FSL). While drawing on social selection and identity perspectives on school choice, this article presents…

Students enrolled in elementary French at grade 8 of the Ontario school system were tested to determine whether a lengthening of the daily session devoted to French from 20 to 40 minutes resulted in increased proficiency. Data make it apparent that increasing the amount of instructional time has produced a significant improvement in students'…

An evaluation of a bilingual program for native English speakers in Ontario that involves the use of French as the medium of instruction for 70 percent of the curriculum in grade 8 and 40 percent in grade 9. (Author/KM)

Successive samples from among students enrolled in French in grade 8 of the Ontario public schools were given English usage and mathematics concepts tests. Results revealed that an increase from 20 to 40 minutes per day of French instruction had no significant effect on students' achievement in English or mathematics. (JB)

Several hundred junior high school students of French in Ontario were administered a battery of various tests of French skills and of language and cultural attitudes. The purpose of the testing was to determine the relationships among the dimensions being tested, as a step in the evaluation of Ontario's elementary French program. Total amount of…

Shows how one teacher skillfully integrates vocabulary instruction with his subject matter teaching. The teacher links the target vocabulary to the students' experiences and concentrates on word meanings and their written and oral forms and syntactic behavior, pushing students to accurate use of the words in context. (12 references) (Author/CK)

A comparison of the French proficiency of bilingual and monolingual native English, Italian, or non-Romance language speaking eighth graders in an Ontario bilingual program found that the bilingual students generally performed better than monolingual students on cloze procedure tests and story telling tasks. (40 references) (Author/CB)