Teachers' Use of the First Language in French Immersion: Revisiting a Core Principle

BRIAN MCMILLAN and MILES TURNBULL

L'apprentissage doit être intensif sans toutefois être une noyade. Les élèves doivent très tôt pouvoir comprendre le français et l'utiliser pour communiquer. Il est donc essentiel que la seule langue de communication dans la salle de classe soit le français. (La Fondation d'éducation des provinces de l'Atlantique, 1997: 9)

[Learning must be intensive, yet should not make students feel that they are drowning. From the early stages of the program, the students must be able to understand French and use it to communicate. It is therefore essential that French be the only language of communication in the classroom. (Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation, 1997: 9) French must be the language of communication in class. (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1998: 8)

Introduction

As the above quotations clearly indicate, a core principle of Canadian French immersion is that learning is best achieved when teachers and students use French exclusively. While the exclusive use of the target language has been accepted as best practice in since its inception in 1965, first language use has long been a topic of much debate and controversy in many teaching and learning contexts beyond French immersion. Current thinking leans towards acceptance of judicious and theoretically principled L1 use (e.g. Cook, 2001; Levine, 2003; Liebscher & Dailey-O'Cain, 2004; Macaro, 2005; Turnbull, 2001). However, the results of this debate have generally been ignored by French immersion policy makers throughout Canada. Some researchers (e.g. Sanaoui, 2005; Skerritt, 2003; Walsh & Yeoman, 1999) suggest, nevertheless, that teacher codeswitching (CS) practice varies significantly in French immersion. Swain and Lapkin (2000), Cummins (2000), Skerritt (2003), Sanaoui (2005, 2007) and Turnbull and McMillan (2006, 2007) have dared to wade into this controversy, but as of yet, calls for debate on this topic in Canadian French immersion programs have generally gone unheard. Moreover, curricula and policy across Canada do not reflect current thinking on first-language use in second and foreign language teaching and learning.

The strongly held position on exclusive target language use in French immersion persists, at least in part, because of the many accolades in the scholarly literature that promote Canadian French immersion – built on exclusive target-language use as a core principle – as 'the most effective approach available to second language teaching in school settings' (Genesee, 1994: 6). In 1987, Genesee argued that 'research has shown consistently that immersion students acquire functional proficiency in French, or in other second languages, that surpasses that of students in all other forms of second language instruction to which immersion has been compared' (Genesee, 1987: 10). Indeed, some even suggest that French immersion programs are the most studied language programs in the world, (Canadian Parents for French, 2003) and are held up as evidence of the power of communicative language teaching in which comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985) in the target language is foundational. Moreover, immersion programs have spread to many countries around the globe, particularly in Europe and the United States, often patterned on the Canadian model (Canadian Parents for French, 2003).

We agree that immersion programs are, in general, highly effective, providing many students with the opportunity to achieve a high level of proficiency in the target language. The success of French immersion is no doubt due in large part to the fact that the target language is the main language of communication and instruction in the classroom. However, Cummins (2000) and others (e.g. Genesee, 1994; Lapkin & Swain, 1990) argue that there is room for improvement in French immersion. These educators identify students' inaccurate productive skills as one of the main areas that need to be addressed in immersion pedagogy.

The use of the first language by students is seen (by teachers and policy makers) as contravening the basic premises of immersion. It rarely occurs to teachers to permit students to use their first language for discussion and initial draft purposes but to require that final drafts of writing or other project output be in the target language. The principle of language separation and vestiges of 'direct method' teaching approaches (i.e. remaining totally in the target language) in immersion programs thus sometimes results in pedagogy that is less cognitively challenging and creative than many educators would consider appropriate. The provision of comprehensible input in the second language is interpreted as the promotion of literal rather than critical comprehension (Cummins, 2000: 10).

Like Cummins (2000), we wonder if rethinking the inflexible and exclusive perspective on target language use may be one way to improve student learning in French immersion. We also contend that judicious first language use can help teachers and students comprehend and discuss cognitively challenging and age appropriate content. However, to advance this debate in Canadian French immersion, research is needed to understand the beliefs and practices of Canadian French immersion teachers – the overall aim of the study we report here.

Firstly, we give some background for French immersion in Canada. Secondly, we briefly review previous research on target language and first language use in French immersion. The main focus of the chapter is a small-scale study which examines the perspectives of two late French immersion teachers on their use of the target language and of...