Re: Public and parochial Schools

Tane Akamatsu (tanea who-is-at ibm.net)
Mon, 31 May 1999 10:41:58 -0400

Point of clarification. Generally speaking, what Martin concluded is true for
public schools, French immersion notwithstanding.

I suspect that individual schools vary in the practice of offering other
subjects in the other language. For example, my son's (elementary) school
offers two levels of French: Core, and Extended. The core program is the
one-hour/day several days per week study of French as a second language. This
is offered from Grades 4-8. Students who do well from Grades 4-6 in Core
French may opt to take Extended French in Grades 7-8, where they are taught
Social Studies and Sciences (I think) *in French*. So they learn Canadian
history, geography, etc. in French, as well as taking French as a subject.
Therefore, about half of the day is conducted in each language, depending on
the timetable.

Tane Akamatsu

Martin Owen wrote:

> If I read Tane right, schools in Canada are monglot, althouygh you may
> study the "other language" as a subject (ie there are no public schools
> which teach science using the Hebrew language in Alberta).
>
> I am interested in public bi-lingual education ie my kids didn't just
> learn English and Welsh, but they studied other subjects in one or other
> of the languages as a matter of course. As an example, my daughter studied
> German as a Welsh speaker and studied French as an English speaker.
> Locally, the reason to opt for private education is to opt out of
> bilingualism.
>
> Belgium takes parochialism to the most extereme. There are ( I think)
> four ministries of education: Protestant Dutch, RC Dutch, Protestant
> French, RC French.
>
> Martin