That means “time flies”!
I have a hard time believing that almost half the year has passed since my last blog entry! It has been an exciting spring.
In January, we started a new project with a local French school where anglophone parents send their children to learn French. It turned out that the parents were also interested in learning French. We obtained special funding from the Ministry of Education for Ontario and we began lessons in late January. We have now completed 5 months of the project.
We do not know yet whether funding will again be provided in the fall but the response from the parents has been very positive. In a satisfaction survey that we conducted, the majority indicated that they would definitely consider following the program if it were offered again in the fall. Those who indicated that they would not participate in the fall stated time constraints and family responsibilities as the reasons for non-participation.
One of the goals of this project was to help parents become fluent in French to enable them to more fully participate in the community activities at the school. Many of them felt uncomfortable volunteering, serving on committees, etc. because they had difficulty communicating with the French-speaking parents. They also stated that their lack of knowledge of French prevented them from helping their children with their school work.
Although the level of proficiency of the parents at the end of the project varied widely, due to several factors such as past exposure to the language, amount of time available to practice, whether or not their spouse spoke French, etc., everyone indicated that their ability to speak or understand French had improved thanks to the lessons that we provided through the project.
It was a great experience for me too as I felt that I was contributing in many ways not only to the parents themselves, but also to their children and to the school. I hope that we will be able to continue the project this fall.
In the meantime, we are gearing up for our summer immersion courses starting in August. We will have lots of fun with students who register for the 3 levels of the program (false beginner, Intermediate/Level B preparation (for those who work in the federal government) and the Advanced Oral Communication/Level C preparation (again for those who work in the federal government).
Registration deadline for the summer immersion courses is the end of June and classes are filling up quickly, so this will be another busy month. Good thing that my wife, Anne-Marie, handles all the registrations so that I can concentrate on the lessons! I have made the program much more focused this summer and I will provide participants with pre-course work to get them ready for the immersion week. I’m really looking forward to this new format and I think students will be very happy with the results.
Hope you have a safe and happy summer! Passez un bel été!