Life After French Immersion: Expectations, Motivations, and Outcomes of Secondary School French Immersion Programs in the Greater Toronto Area

This dissertation investigates the contribution of French immersion (FI) studies to the Canadian linguistic landscape. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study explored French immersion education from three different perspectives: parents enrolling their children into early FI programs; current FI students who have pursued FI to grade 12; and graduates of FI programs in Ontario, and researched how these perspectives aligned with both the history and policy of FI studies.

Data were collected from three sources: parents enrolling in early FI, current grade 12 FI students, and graduates of the FI program in Ontario. The findings of the study reveal that parents of prospective FI students believed their child would become bilingual as a result of their participation in the program and their child would gain cultural and linguistic capital leading to better future employment.

Similarly, current FI students believed that their participation in the program would open up better future job opportunities, despite not being interested in seeking out French-language employment so much as putting FI on their résumé to secure non-French speaking employment. Despite feeling a high sense of pride and privilege from being a FI student, they expressed a low level of willingness to communicate (WTC) in French outside of the classroom environment which could help to explain the disinterest in obtaining French language employment.

Graduates of FI expressed a similar sense of pride as a result of their participation in the program but 67% admitted to not using French at all following graduation. Of the 33% who indicated they still used French on a daily basis, 19% were teaching French in some capacity.

The findings corroborate findings from previous studies (Lyster, 1987; Swain, 1996; Mougeon, Rehner, & Nadasdi, 2005), which indicate that despite curricular changes since the program’s inception, FI students continue to struggle with communicative competence outside of the classroom. Additionally, the data reveals a number of disconnects in the political vision and goals of FI in Ontario, motivations of parents enrolling their children in FI studies, and the utilization of French language skills among graduates of FI programs following graduation.