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As another qualified TESL instructor in the French public schools here in Quebec I can tell you that ESL classes are a joke. The problem is not the lack of qualified teachers. There are enough qualified ESL teachers here in Montreal, and hundreds more graduating from universities every year. The problem is that the English curriculum in public French schools is a politically motivated program that aims at giving students just some basic notions of English, it is not a curriculum designed to make students speak English fluently. Parents are under the illusion that their kids are really learning English when in fact they are not.
All the studies done in second language acquisition so far have shown that kids who start speaking two languages earlier do better not worse in school and that learning a second language does not prevent students from learning their first language. Also, language classes should be concentrated in a short period of time (e.g. 4-6 hours a week, ideally 30 hours a week-immersion). One hour or two hours a week is far from being enough when learning a second language. And that's what those kids get on average: 1 hour a week in elementary school and 2 hours a week in high school. We're talking regular schools here, not special programs such as the very rare grade 6 English immersion or the high school international program.
Somehow, unilingual French school administrators and decision-makers, teachers, and unions are under the impression that students should learn French properly first before starting English, because they see English as an additional burden which would make students "lose their French". They are so afraid of losing their precious French that they will educationally handicap the students.
aliss2--I don't know what you're comparing the Quebec ESL program to, but certainly not to the ESL programs of other countries. Actually, I would say that on an international level Quebec lags behind in teaching ESL. And the sad part is that English is actually the other official language in Canada.
I completely disagree and so would many of my TESL friends currently teaching in QC but hey, we all have opinions. I teach ESL in Alberta now anyways
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