Alberta's curriculum guide for French immersion programs outlines the programs' rationale and objectives and the content of the oral language, reading, and writing components for six years. An introductory section discusses the aim of developing language competence and recent theory on competence. The role of language as an instrument of…

Research was conducted to investigate the development of linguistic competence in early French immersion programs. Fifty-five students in grades 3, 4, and 5 were administered a test of oral production in French. Twenty-seven grammatical features were examined by means of a detailed error analysis. The results show that there was little improvement…

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 academic achievement in French of two cohorts of grade 9 students of a public school early immersion program in New Brunswick, which has total French-language instruction through grade 4 and includes all students in the program except transfers was compared to that of a group of native French-speaking students at a nearby French-language…

An experimental bilingual bicultural French language program for kindergarten students in a former French-speaking area of Western Newfoundland was initiated in an integrated primary school in September 1975. The experimental class of thirty students was taught entirely in French while the control group received twenty minutes of French per day…

The results of the evaluation of the French immersion program at a school in a unilingual English environment are described. A battery of tests was administered to a random sample of children from the kindergarten and grade one experimental French immersion classes and to a comparison group composed of children following the regular English…

A model is presented for postsecondary French language education based on the belief that linguistic improvement and cultural rappprochement are complementary goals. Data on secondary French immersion enrollment trends are noted, and planning difficulties due to small enrollments and insufficient information about career goals are discussed. (MSE)

The guide is designed to encourage parents of children in elementary school French immersion programs to take an active role in the programs, and to provide practical information to support such participation. Sections address these topics: terminology concerning program types and other aspects of immersion instruction; the rationale for learning…

This book presents European perspectives on the means of structuring curricula that integrate content and language teaching, drawing on the experience of practitioners at a range of levels. It also provides details of the outcomes of such programs and describes the current and future challenges for wider scale adoption of content and language…

The guide provides both general and specific behavioral objectives for French second language instruction in immersion contexts at each grade level in Alberta's elementary and secondary schools (K-12). An introductory section gives an overview of the curriculum's design and use of the guide, instructional and evaluation principles, and some major…

The annotated bibliography lists albums, picture books, stories, novels, informational books, songs, and readings appropriate for children in grades K-3 in French immersion programs. An introductory section gives an overview of the bibliography and its use. The bibliography itself is divided into two sections, one citing literature of importance…

Explores what it means to think in a target language, discusses those factors determining planned and unplanned use of more than one language for thinking, considers the role of target-language thinking in improving language ability, and examines mental translation in the reading of intermediate college French. The article concludes that benefits…

A set of functional-analytic materials, entailing the study and practice of sociostylistic variation, was implemented in three eighth-grade French immersion (FI) classrooms by their respective teachers during French language arts classes over a five-week period. Pre- and posttests indicate that functional-analytic teaching improved FI students'…

Presents the results of the second year of a four-year longitudinal evaluation of a partial French immersion program in Cincinnati, Ohio, that includes children from lower socioeconomic group and ethnic minority group (Black) backgrounds in addition to majority (White) and middle-class students. (17 references) (GLR)

This article reports on a study of pre-service French immersion teachers who were required to compile second language (L2) portfolios as part of their professional development. Documents included a brief biography of the students' lives as speakers and learners of French; an action plan in which students assessed their L2 proficiency and set…