This article features results from a research project aimed to study the perception of young people enrolled in a bilingual DCS program in order to validate whether taking courses in both French and English had a significant influence on their academic motivation.1

For further details, please consult: Rompré, H. (2022). L’enseignement bilingue au collégial : perception des étudiants et aspects motivationnels. Collégial international Sainte-Anne. 

[1] This research was made possible by a grant from the Programme de recherche et d’expérimentation pédagogiques (PREP)

Background 

Bilingual Education: A Rare Option in the Québec College Network 

For decades, voices have been raised to deplore the decline of interest among young Francophones and allophones in French-language post-secondary education, calling for government measures to curb the linguistic exodus, particularly in CEGEPs (Lacroix, 2020). In the process, Bill 96, whose objective is to ensure the sustainability of the French language, proposes, among other things, restrictions on admission to English-speaking college institutions in the province of Québec (National Assembly, 2021). Political and media debates rarely mention another type of pathway: bilingual education programs. Yet, such programs currently exist in the private college network. At Collégial international Sainte-Anne, located on the island of Montréal, general education is provided in French and a few specific courses are offered in English.

It is relevant to ask what motivates students to follow a bilingual study program. What are their perceptions of the benefits of bilingualism? What challenges will they encounter in their college studies?

Educational research shows that motivated students find courses’ content useful, participate in learning activities and are more persistent (Viau, 2010). In this sense, a person’s positive perception of the content of their learning shapes their desire to succeed in their studies.

Key Concept 

What is Bilingual Education?   

Bilingual education is the delivery of certain courses in a language other than the students’ native language (Kim, Hutchison, & Winsler, 2015). It is important to distinguish bilingual education from linguistic enrichment or “intensive” programs, which aim to add more language instruction hours to the curriculum (Ministère de l’éducation, n.d.), as here we are not only talking about language courses. While bilingual education is used worldwide in primary and secondary schools to facilitate the acquisition of a second language in children, the effectiveness of this model in adults remains understudied (Pilotti, Gutierrez, Klein, & Mahamame, 2015).   

Methodology

Qualitative Research to Identify Students’ Perceptions of Their Study Program

  • Type of research: Qualitative
  • Study population: 17 students from Collégial international Sainte-Anne who define themselves as French speakers and who speak French at home. These young people were aged 17 to 20 at the time of the research.
  • Place and period of research: 17 semi-directed individual interviews conducted in fall 2021 and 15 interviews conducted in winter 2022 with the same students from Collégial international Sainte-Anne in Montréal.

The goal was to allow young people talk about their experience in a bilingual college education program while asking them about their sources of motivation, their perception of the advantages of bilingualism and the challenges encountered in their studies. The interviews were transcribed and the main themes as well as the sub-themes of the accounts were noted.

Results

A Positive Perception of Bilingual Education… Despite Some Challenges

English: A Language Perceived as Necessary for Social Success.

All learners noted a significant improvement in their English skills throughout their college studies. They reported being motivated to attend their classes because they felt they were learning a language that would be useful for admission to a university program of choice, work, travelling and opening up to the world (see Table 1 for full data). Michele[1], for example, confided:

“You can do anything when you know the English language, in the sense that you’re going to go to a country where it’s not their first language but there’s always someone who’s going to speak English.” 

Young people demonstrated personal motivation to improve their second language skills. Parental pressure, for its part, seems to have played a minor role in choosing the bilingual program, as it only concerns 8 out of 17 young people.

[1] To ensure confidentiality, first names are pseudonyms.

A Program Adapted to the French-Speaking Student Population.

Participants described their bilingual classrooms as safe environments since French-speaking students learn with other French-speaking students, as Jean-René explains:

“We are less afraid to speak in front of the group because everyone is at a comparable level, it is less embarrassing than in front of a group of English speakers.”

They appreciated having understanding teachers used to interacting with French speakers. Respondents also said they were happy to take some more demanding courses in their mother tongue; courses requiring reading and writing skills, such as philosophy, history and biology.

For several of them, bilingualism was an excellent compromise since they felt a certain social pressure to improve their English skills, while the bilingual program also allowed them to maintain a high level of French. In addition, they appreciated having the opportunity to submit their work in French, even in courses taught in a second language. Finally, the pedagogical format offered them the possibility of improving their English without having to worry that their R score (college performance rating) would be too affected by the fact that they were taking certain courses in a second language.

Bilingual Education: A Choice that Involves Challenges.

Participants reported two main problems related to bilingual education (see Table 2 for full data). On the one hand, language anxiety, or even shame, of expressing oneself orally in imperfect language was noted by 8 out of 17 people. Some of them were even hesitant to ask questions in English to the teachers. Mélanie, for example, revealed that she didn’t participate as much in class:

“It’s certain that if it’s a course in English, I’m much less likely to speak because even if I understand English well, I have more difficulty expressing myself in English, because I never practice.”

On the other hand, “Franglais” or linguistic ambiguity (alternating between the two languages by mixing the two) is a problem raised by all respondents, without exception. However, according to Nathalie, after a while, you get used to this new reality:

“It switches in my head quite easily.”

What Can we Learn from our Results?

Bilingual Education: An Avenue to Consider Under Certain Conditions

There are Benefits to Opening up to Bilingual Education.

Currently, Québec colleges are categorized as “French-speaking” or “English-speaking” (National Assembly, 2021). Bilingual education is a marginal, even experimental, phenomenon within the private network. Our research shows that many French-speaking college students want to improve their English skills, but the idea of leaving their mother tongue behind is unappealing. To avoid a linguistic exodus to English-speaking institutions while allowing young people to improve their language skills, it would be possible to offer programs where some courses are taken in English.À l’heure actuelle, les établissements collégiaux québécois sont catégorisés comme « francophones » ou « anglophones » (Assemblée nationale, 2021).

Bilingual Education Represents an Avenue to Consider for English-Speaking College Institutions.

The English-speaking college network would also benefit from implementing such programs so that the English-speaking student population would be more comfortable looking for jobs in the province of Québec, where French is generally present. According to our participants’ accounts, bilingual education allows people to express themselves at a high level in French and English at the end of a two-year diploma of college studies (DCS). This skill is valued in the labour market: people who are proficient in both of Canada’s official languages have higher salaries than unilingual people (Conference Board of Canada, 2018).

The Creation of Bilingual Programs Must Take into Account the Challenges Reported by Students.

Bilingual education programs should be geared toward people who volunteer and who are personally motivated to improve their second language skills. The implementation of such programs should take into account the challenges reported by students. Care should be taken, when training teaching staff, to raise awareness about the reality of language anxiety in a second language.

Courses of Action

  • Offer bilingual programs to people who volunteer without making them compulsory.
  • Opt for general education in students’ mother tongue (particularly philosophy, a subject which involves reading and understanding more complex philosophical texts) and specific courses in a second or third language.
  • Train staff in language didactics and make them fully aware of the challenges of bilingual education.
  • Reduce sources of stress for students who choose to take a course in a second or third language by taking measures to alleviate language anxiety (e.g., mentoring, language help centre, reducing the weight of second language assessments in the calculation of the general average).
    • For example, at the University of Ottawa, English speakers are encouraged to take courses in French without fear of being penalized. Second language courses are credited, but do not count toward their overall GPA (Flynn, 2018).
  • Promote exchanges, exchange programs and linguistic twinning between French-speaking and English-speaking institutions.r les rencontres, les programmes d’échanges et le jumelage linguistique entre les établissements francophones et anglophones.
    • Quelques initiatives collégiales ont déjà prouvé que des activités favorisant la rencontre de deux communautés ethnolinguistiques augmentent la motivation d’apprendre une langue seconde (Gagné et Deveau, 2021; Popica, 2020).

Lines of Research

  • Validate whether the bilingual pathway has a quantifiable impact on academic success. For example, is there an impact on academic results, on the quality of texts produced in French and on success rates at the Épreuve uniforme de français?
  • Validate whether bilingualism in education impairs the quality of graduates’ French skills in order to ensure that such programs do not compromise the preservation of the French language.
  • Continue work on bilingual education in colleges and universities, while also showing interest in English-speaking, allophone and First People student populations.
  • Validate whether the academic motivation of people enrolled in a bilingual program is similar outside of the greater Montréal area, where English is omnipresent.
  • Compare the experience of young French speakers who have opted for a bilingual program to that of French speakers who have enrolled in a unilingual English program to see if they experience similar challenges.
  • Follow participants throughout their academic pathway and in their early career in order to reflect on the impact of bilingualism on their personal and professional journey.

For Further Reading

Ambrosio, L., Dansereau, M.-C. et Gobeil, M. (2012). L’immersion linguistique à l’Université d’Ottawa : Une formule attrayante pour poursuivre l’apprentissage d’une langue seconde. Synergies, 7, 119-134.

Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Multilingual Matters.

Sénat du Canada. (2015). Viser plus haut : Augmenter le bilinguisme de nos jeunes Canadiens. Comité sénatorial permanent des langues officielles.

References

Assemblée nationale du Québec. (2021). Projet de loi no 96 : Loi sur la langue officielle et commune du Québec, le français. Éditeur officiel du Québec.

Conference Board of Canada. (2018). Le bilinguisme français-anglais hors Québec : un portrait économique des bilingues au Canada. Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne.

Flynn, P. (2018). Student motivation, identity and investment construction in French Immersion Studies at the University of Ottawa. OLBI Journal, 9, 77-88.

Gagné, P. et Deveau, C. (2021). Jumelage interculturel en classe de langue seconde au collégial. Collège Vanier et Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe.

Kim, Y. K., Hutchison, L. A. et Winsler, A. (2015). Bilingual education in the United States: an historical overview and examination of two-way immersion. Educational Review, 67(2), 236-252.

Lacroix, F. (2020). Pourquoi la loi 101 est un échec. Boréal.

Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec. (s. d.). Anglais, langue seconde — Programme de base. Programme enrichi.

Pilotti, M., Gutierrez, A., Klein, E. et Mahamame, S. (2015). Young adults’ perceptions and use of bilingualism as a function of an early immersion program. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(4), 383-394.

Popica, M. (2020). Apprentissage collaboratif interculturel en classe de français langue seconde. John Abbott College.

Viau, R. (2009). La motivation à apprendre en milieu scolaire. ERPI.

Statement of responsibility

Editor: Karine Vieux-Fort
Editorial Committee: Karine Vieux-Fort, Anouk Lavoie-Isebaert and Catherine Charron
Linguistic Review: Marie-Eve Cloutier

Legal Deposit – Bibliothère et Archives nationales du Québec, Library and Archives Canada, 2024 ISSN: 2817-2817

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

This document was produced with the financial support of the Gouvernement du Québec, under the Canada-Québec Agreement