Objective of article

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  To review and update the key features of French Immersion in Canada as identified by Swain and Johnson (1997) to reflect the ethnic diversity in Canada and the variety of L1’s in the classroom.
  
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  A second objective is to examine the role of the L1 in L2 learning and its use in the classroom in light of new research which suggests that it can be beneficial to L2 learning (or the immersion language).  
  

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  The L2 should now be referred to as the “immersion language” to reflect the reality that French may in fact be the L3 or L4 for immigrant children.
  
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  All L1’s need to be supported.
  
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  The classroom culture is no longer that of the L1 community and needs to recognize the cultural diversity of the students.
  

1. Swain et al (1990) studied close to 200 grade 8 late immersion students and found that immigrant students performed as well as or better than Anglophones in French writing, reading, speaking and listening. Immigrant students who had developed literacy skills in their home languages out-performed Anglophones.

2. Dagenais and Day (1998) present case studies of three immigrant children in grades 3, 4 and 6, in three school communities, who spoke another language at home and whose families encouraged trilingualism. Parents and teachers alike reported benefits of an L3

3. In an ethnographic study in Vancouver, Dagenais and Berron explored “language practices, educational strategies and representations of self in South Asian families of diverse language backgrounds” (2001: 145), and family support for French Immersion and multi-lingualism.

The Role of the L1: The authors cite several studies which show evidence that speaking and writing in the L1 are cognitive tools not only to learn subjects such as science and math but also to learn language. The L1 can play an important role in the L2 classroom including: task my management, helping learners to support each other, working through complex problems and stress management and socializing.

The authors describe a dual-language book project in Toronto where new immigrants were encouraged to bring their native language into the regular classroom to promote literacy and recommend immersion classrooms adopt a similar approach.