Immersion programmes in Canada

According to Gunderson, D’Silva and Odo (2012:146) most of the primary school level learners who immigrate to Canada, Vancouver School district in particular come from 82 countries, which shows that Canada is dealing with a challenge of a very broad diversity of immigrant cultures and languages. Most of them however, come from China, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan. The increase in “birth tourism” in Canada (Browne, 2016:1) adds to the challenge. Birth tourism can be defined as a trend in which people from foreign countries immigrate to another country to give birth to their babies with an intention to stay in the country they immigrated to. The immigrant babies concerned are referred to as “anchor babies” because they are given the new country’s citizenship status, which permits the parents to stay for longer periods (Browne, 2016: 1). The babies are then used to anchor the family into the concerned country. Gunderson et al (2012:146) say that families from India prefer to give birth to their children in Canada but raise them in their home country until school-going age. They then return to Canada and enrol them in Canadian schools as English second-language speakers.

Significant high rates of drop-outs have been reported between grades 8 and 12 among Spanish-speaking immigrants and Mandarin-speaking immigrants in Canada because of language challenges (Dowrick & Crespo, 2007:594; Gunderson et al., 2012:146- 147).

Teaching English as a second language is also a challenge in the current South African Model C schools. Teaching English second-language speakers in English is the challenge that I observed as part of the problem in this study. I therefore contend that this is a global challenge.

In order to address the language challenge, the Canadian Ministry of Education developed immersion programmes to support for immigrant learners (Christensen &

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Stanat, 2007:8). In order for schools to qualify for additional funds to support these programmes, the following conditions had to be met:

• An English-language assessment had to be conducted to confirm that the learner does require additional support.

• The schools, together with a support specialist had to have an instruction plan in place that would meet the learners’ needs.

• The learners had to receive additional support in a form of special instruction in language acquisition or writing, or in-class individualised assistance. The schools had to support the teachers in addressing these language needs.

• The schools had to record the type of support given and the learner’s progress (Christensen & Stanat, 2007:8-9).

According to Desrochers (2005:115), “Teaching immersion is not just teaching a second language. The primary rationale for immersion programs is that a new language is best imparted to students by using it as a medium of instruction, as opposed to simply teaching the language as an isolated subject. It is the desire to search for meaning and to manipulate and master the subject content that motivates the child to learn the language Desrochers furthermore explains that a balanced immersion literacy programme enables learners to acquire reading, writing, speaking and listening skills, which are developed through modelled, shared, guided and independent language activities across the curriculum (Desrochers, 2005:115) There should also be an on- going exposure to the immersion language within the school setting by means of narrative and informational texts, various audio-visuals and technological tools, as well as through visits by people who speak the immersion language fluently. This would provide the learners with the opportunities to learn the language in a natural environment.

In the immersion programmes, the teacher is expected to enhance these experiences by modelling the language rules in his or her interactions with the learners. The teacher should also continually assess the level of development of the learners’ language in order to respond appropriately by developing activities which are relevant to the identified immediate needs (Desrochers, 2005:116). The design of the immersion programmes were evidently designed solely for academic development. There is no evidence of integration of the curriculum content with the emotional, social and

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behavioural functioning of the child in order to ensure that the immigrant child develops holistically.

The immersion programmes appear to be academically relevant and sound for all the learners because it gave them the opportunity to learn in their own languages, and also gave the learners from the dominant groups an opportunity to learn the minority languages of their immigrant peers as advocated by Cummins and Hornberger (2010:47).

Depending on needs analysis of the learners, the teacher should pre-teach the content by giving the learners projects to do, either as individuals or collaboratively as groups in order to develop the vocabulary. Effective strategies to be implemented by the teacher should include demonstrations, shared activities, giving the learners frequent opportunities to practice the second language as well as constant evaluation of and feedback to the learner (Desrochers, 2005:116). All these strategies, emphasise mastery of content for the sake of scholastic achievement only. The psychosocial challenges that are associated with poor language proficiency among immigrants are not dealt with in the immersion programmes. Language and behaviour are therefore, seen as two separate aspects.

The language and behaviour challenges among immigrant learners in the Netherlands also probed the Dutch government to develop educational programmes that could address these challenges.