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English language education by one parent must have been completed in QUEBEC-only.
I finished high school and university in British Columbia (English) and my son does not qualify to go to English schools here in Quebec because of that. My husband is francophone and educated in French here.
I have anglophone friends here whose children attend public English schools but that is because they attended English schools in Quebec.
I'm not sure if/when the rules changed but this is of this year. This is to assimilate anglophone immigrants.
I believe that has changed for Canadian citizens (but not for immigrants) and that if one or both parents (who must be Canadian citizens) were educated in English elsewhere in Canada, they can educate their children in English in Quebec. This is an interesting read: Closing English Schools
I believe that has changed for Canadian citizens (but not for immigrants) and that if one or both parents were educated in English elsewhere in Canada, they can eductae their children in English in Quebec. This is an interesting read: Closing English Schools
Thanks, I will definitely take a look, I might have been speaking to a mis-informed staff member.
Okay, so the Commission of Official Languages says the same... good to know. I will still keep mine in French language education but nice to know. Thanks!
Okay, so the Commission of Official Languages says the same... good to know. I will still keep mine in French language education but nice to know. Thanks!
Okay, so the Commission of Official Languages says the same... good to know. I will still keep mine in French language education but nice to know. Thanks!
I would too - if you speak English to them at home and they go to a French school (or vice versa), they turn out beautifully bilingual!
It has actually been changed since around 1984, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the original wording in Bill 101 on this (only English schooling in Quebec was sufficient) was unconstitutional and contrary to section 23 of the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So Quebec was forced by the court to accept schooling in English anywhere in Canada as sufficient for eligibility for English schools in Quebec for children.
The reason that the Quebec government had put the Quebec only clause in there was because, in theory at least, 500,000 people could move to Quebec from the rest of Canada tomorrow, and they would all have the right to English schools for their kids and Quebec would be obliged to provide them to them.
Though my numbers are of course exaggerated, it was something of an issue in the region of Quebec (Outaouais, Quebec), which borders Ottawa and Ontario and where quite a few people move from Ontario to the Quebec side and because of the Charter, they bring their English school rights with them for their kids. It was also somewhat of an issue in Montreal, which along with the Outaouais is the other main destination in Quebec for migrants from the rest of the country.
I would too - if you speak English to them at home and they go to a French school (or vice versa), they turn out beautifully bilingual!
Thanks for weighing in, everybody. I, too, was originally thinking I would prefer to have my daughter in an all-French school so that she would quickly learn French, but that was before I realized that the majority of the English Montreal public schools (at least in the English Montreal School Board) are French Immersion or Bilingual English/French. If possible, I will put my daughter in the Immersion program at an English school, as ideally I'd like her to receive most of her education in French, but also some in English. We will speak only English at home, but I've heard that if she does not receive at least some part of her education in English, she'll miss out on "academic" English, which could limit, a bit, her English-language academic and/or professional opportunities in the future.
A friend of mine who is bilingual Spanish/English spoke only Spanish at home but was educated in English-only schools in the U.S. (in a partially Spanish speaking neighborhood in a cosmopolitan city). Although she is, of course, fluent in both languages, as an adult she is considering taking Spanish classes teaching professional and academic writing. She said that her Spanish is very colloquial. Anyway, would love to hear others' viewpoints regarding language acquisition, but that's probably a topic for a different thread!
I'm conflicted too. I teach ESL (English as a second language) and one thing I always remember is that the better their native language, the better their second language. Literacy breeds literacy.
Fortunately my boy's not 2 until next month so I have time to think about it.
Thanks for weighing in, everybody. I, too, was originally thinking I would prefer to have my daughter in an all-French school so that she would quickly learn French, but that was before I realized that the majority of the English Montreal public schools (at least in the English Montreal School Board) are French Immersion or Bilingual English/French. If possible, I will put my daughter in the Immersion program at an English school, as ideally I'd like her to receive most of her education in French, but also some in English. We will speak only English at home, but I've heard that if she does not receive at least some part of her education in English, she'll miss out on "academic" English, which could limit, a bit, her English-language academic and/or professional opportunities in the future.
A friend of mine who is bilingual Spanish/English spoke only Spanish at home but was educated in English-only schools in the U.S. (in a partially Spanish speaking neighborhood in a cosmopolitan city). Although she is, of course, fluent in both languages, as an adult she is considering taking Spanish classes teaching professional and academic writing. She said that her Spanish is very colloquial. Anyway, would love to hear others' viewpoints regarding language acquisition, but that's probably a topic for a different thread!
I haven't seen that happen - and I've seen a lot of variations on the theme, growing up in New Brunswick. I think it depends on how good the child is with languages. And parents will notice if the child is struggling at all. My daughter did K-12 completely in French, and we spoke English at home. This was a conscious decision on our part as we had seen this work so well with many other families over the years. We ensured that she read a lot in both languages - and even as a toddler she was very articulate. (Until she was school age I spoke French to her and her dad spoke English so she was bilingual from the beginning).
After high school she went to an English university with no problem (she had to write an assessment because her K-12 schools were French, but because we spoke English at home and she always read books at home in English she was fluent in everything in both languages and that was a breeze. From my experience people who read a lot tend to write well, and that is certainly true of my daughter.)
She has no accent in either language.
Last edited by sunshineleith; 05-11-2012 at 12:38 PM..
I've heard that if she does not receive at least some part of her education in English, she'll miss out on "academic" English, which could limit, a bit, her English-language academic and/or professional opportunities in the future.
A friend of mine who is bilingual Spanish/English spoke only Spanish at home but was educated in English-only schools in the U.S. (in a partially Spanish speaking neighborhood in a cosmopolitan city). Although she is, of course, fluent in both languages, as an adult she is considering taking Spanish classes teaching professional and academic writing. She said that her Spanish is very colloquial. Anyway, would love to hear others' viewpoints regarding language acquisition, but that's probably a topic for a different thread!
It is a good question to ask but I'd say that English won't be a problem even if the child does all of his or her schooling in French. As a fluent speaker of both French and English, I have always found that everyday spoken English is much closer to formal English and written English, when compared to the various types of French.
Anglo kids that I know who go to or have gone to school all in French often still have better English than French skills, especially in writing. This is probably because they tend to still read in English a lot - outside of what school requires.
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