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GUEST EDITORIAL — The following is part two of a multi-part guest editorial by New Brunswick Education Minister Kelly Lamrock in response to the ongoing controversy over the government's announced plans for teaching french as a second language in New Brunswick.

Education minister Kelly Lamrock

There have been many reports over the years on our French Second Language system. Some were reports on our entire education system that identified FSL as a major part of the structure that shapes results. Others were specifically on FSL or some aspect of it.

Certain things seemed to come through in all the reports. The desire to give kids the gift of learning a second language is becoming something more and more parents share. For those kids who enter Early Immersion and stay with it, the program works and works well. (Here's how well — Department numbers suggest 85 per cent of early Immersion kids surpass Intermediate level — the largest group at Advanced level, a level good enough for professional settings.)

And for those who enter Late Immersion, the program also works, and works well. (Here's how well — Department numbers suggest 91 per cent of Late Immersion kids surpass Intermediate level — the largest group at Intermediate Plus, one level below Early Immersion, but still good enough for most professional settings).

Yet for all these improvements, the number of kids graduating with bilingual capacity was stalled. And all the reports have some common reasons for that, too.

Core French hasn't worked. Kids don't retain anything hearing a language a few minutes a day. And so between 88 per cent and 98 per cent of kids leave Grade 5 without even basic skills to string a sentence together.

Early Immersion only attracts a minority of students — and it loses a number of them. I've heard experts disagree on exactly how many students drop out, but by the end of Grade 5 it's safe to say three-quarters of kids aren't in early Immersion.

Late Immersion has an attrition rate, too — often due to the fact that high school students taking advanced courses may want depth in those courses beyond what they can do in a second language.

Of course, the children who drop out of Early Immersion in the first two years often do so because they struggle, and the adaptive resources aren't there to help them. The result is that one stream (Core French) has a hugely disproportionate share of children with Special education Plans (SEPs). If you put too many children who struggle in one class, none get the attention they deserve. Every report for years says we're doing just that.

Poor classroom composition isn't helping our standing in literacy, math and science. While this is a review of French Second language programs, no one program can be reviewed without looking at how it impacts other worthy goals.

So, there seem to be certain common themes that emerge. People may debate the degree to which each of these are true, but they are generally accepted across a broad range of studies, reports and opinions.

for teaching a second language. Programs that offer a little language at a time, like Core French, don't. Intensive French is showing progress at a speed similar to immersion, but hasn't been tried as much beyond Grade Five.

It's also true that far fewer than 70 per cent of kids are in immersion programs the way they are structured now, and that immersion programs don't retain kids well when they struggle. Streaming is real and the classroom composition that results creates some bad learning environments for kids