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Elizabeth Murphy and Joan Netten Memorial University Of the 121,772 students enroled in primary, elementary and secondary schools in Newfoundland and Labrador during the 1992-93 school year, 258 were enroled in French first-language classes (Province of Newfoundland,1992-93). This small group of students comprises only .002% of the province's total student body. The educational enrolments are reflective of the demographic statistics since, according to the 1991 census, the 2,400 francophones in Newfoundland and Labrador represent only .O4% of the population of the province (Canada,1992). These 2,400 Francophones are concentrated in three areas isolated from each other by geography: St. John's, Labrador City and the Port-au-Port Peninsula. More than 500 kilometres separate St. John's from the Port-au-Port Peninsula and access to Labrador from the island of Newfoundland is possible only by sea or air travel. This geographical isolation is reinforced by historical origins. The francophones of the Port-au-Port Peninsula are the largest group and represent the most indigenous population. Eleven percent of the peninsula's population of 5,245 claim French ancestry. Their ancestors settled in the region in the 15th and 16th centuries and came primarily as fishermen on vessels from France and from St. Pierre et Miquelon. Others came from Acadia and the Magdalen Islands after the deportation of 1744. French first-language classes were begun in Mainland on the Port-au Port Peninsula in September, 1987, after considerable lobbying on the part of parents from the region, and following recommendations from a study established by the provincial government (see Cormier, Crocker, Netten & Spain,1985). In Labrador city, the francophone population was created in the late 1950's and early 1960's by the Iron Ore Company and Wabush Mines Ltd. who attracted workers primarily from Qu‚bec to the new mines being developed in the area. Newfoundland's first French first-language classes were established in Labrador City in 196O in order to accommodate the children of the francophone miners. The findings reported in this paper relate to the francophones in St. John's. This group tends to be professional workers attracted or transferred to positions with the federal and provincial governments or to Memorial University. Francophones in the island's capital are not as indigenous or homogenous a population as one would find in Labrador or in on the Port-au-Port Peninsula. They are a relatively transient group with roots in France, St. Pierre et Miquelon, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Manitoba (Netten,1989). According to the 1986 census, there were slightly more than 600 francophones in and around St. John's (Canada,1988). The French first-language classes in St. John's opened in September, 199O after a long period of lobbying and negotiation which began in 1987. The Roman Catholic School Board for St. John's accepted 34 students enroled in classes from Kindergarten to Grade 4 at an immersion centre. This school, which formed the research setting for the present study, houses one Kindergarten class and two multigrade classes with a total of three francophone teachers and 38 children from Kindergarten to grade 5 for the 1992-93 school year. Francophones in St. John's are very much a minority group and, as such, any efforts to education them in their mother tongue can only be accurately described in terms of minority-language education. The purpose of this paper therefore is to consider how the minority setting impacts on the following aspects of French first-language education in St. John's, Newfoundland.
1. the quality of service provided; The literature pertaining to French first-language education in a minority setting focuses largely on the cognitive aspects of this type of education (see Cummins, 1978, 1981; Landry, 1982,1984) and on legal issues of management and control (see Martel, 1991; Beaudoin,1991; Foucher, 1991). There is also some descriptive documentation pertaining to the types of programs offered in the various provinces and on the history ansd social context of the development of these programs (see Keough, 1990; Martel,1991; Commissioner,1990b; Mougeon & Heller, 1986). This review of the literature did not uncover any studies or documentation on chalenges or problems related to teh provision of French first- language education in a minority setting.
The data for this paper are part of a larger ethnographic study conducted in a combined French immersion and French first- language Kindergarten to grade 5 school (see Murphy,1992). The findings which are reported in this paper relate solely to the problems and challenges associated with the French first-language classes. The data were collected by means of one month (May,1992) of participant observation, five formal, semistructured interviews, conducted with the principal of the school, the assistant superintendent (asst. sup.) of the related school board and the program coordinator of the board. The principal was observed for one month by the researcher who also participated where possible in the same activities as the principal. The observation and participation provided the opportunity to understand and better appreciate information provided in the interviews. The observations and informal conversations were recorded by means of a daily log. The formal interviews were recorded on audio cassette. Logs and cassette tapes were analyzed to determine patterns and recurrent themes. These themes were grouped into categories and it is these categories which were used to organize the data. Each category contains excerpts from the interviews combined with annotation or explanation and these categories form the basis of the reporting.
The categories of problems pertaining to the French first- language program are related to the following: quality of instruction; language and culture; parental expectations; issues relating to control and management.
By quality of service is meant the degree to which the school or educational system in general is able to provide an efficient and effective education which responds to the needs of the students and which achieves the goals that have been established. An important challenge related to providing efficient and effective French first-language education in St. John's involves recruiting qualified teachers. There is not a sufficiently large population base of francophones in the province from which French first- language teachers might be recruited. The choice is narrowed by the fact that it can be difficult to recruit candidates who are francophones and who are also trained in primary or elementary methods. In order to recruit a teacher, the school board may have to make some compromises between linguistic proficiency and qualifications: Do we pick a teacher who speaks excellent French who's a francophone or do we get someone whose French might not be as good but whose teaching is better. If it's a French school, you need to have a francophone. So you might have to sacrifice a good teacher for somebody who speaks French.(principal) Recruiting teachers who are well-qualified and who also speak French well can present even greater difficulties in specialty areas. Specialists teachers in the areas of music, physical education and learning resources are hard to recruit because there is a need to have teachers who are qualified in these areas but who also speak French: The teachers do their own music and they do their own physical education. They don't have a bilingual librarian....We have been trying for a number of years to have support services in French....For music, phys ed. and guidance, there are very few people around who have qualifications and also speak French....The accusation that is being made now is that we will dilute qualifications in order to get someone who can speak French which may or may not be true. (asst. supt.) If a francophone trained to teach music or physical education cannot be recruited then the classroom teacher has to take the responsibility for these areas whether or not he or she is trained in the area. According to the principal, this situation has an effect on the quality of education which the students receive: One of the problems that I've had in French first- language is that the students are not getting the same quality of education as the other students from the music and gym point of view and even from the library science because we don't have a French-speaking music, Phys ed., [teacher] and librarian. So these children are missing out.(principal) The lack of francophone candidates also poses serious challenges in the area of support services. For the school under study there are no support services available in French for the French first-language students. This situation can pose serious problems for these students because they may not speak any English and can therefore not be tested by a guidance counsellor or educational psychologist who speaks only English: We have no support services in French first-language for any of what we call the psychological services or student services.... the only language spoken by the francophone student is French except when they do language arts in English in Grade four.(asst. supt.) Not only are full-time permanent teachers hard to recruit. Finding substitutes for the French first-language classes is also very difficult if not impossible: Substitutes are a big, big problem with French first- language. We really can't get them. They have advertised here in town and they advertised on the mainland but they could not get anyone to come here. Someone is not going to come from Qu‚bec - they want a full-time job. It's a major problem.(principal)
Some of the essential aims of the French school in Newfoundland are to: timulate and strengthen the learner's sense of cultural and linguistic identity as a francophone; serve as a cultural centre for the French Newfoundland community; reinforce the learner's sense of belonging to the immediate francophone community. (Province of Newfoundland, 1990) While these aims are clearly formulated and couched in definite terms in government policy documents, it is questionable whether or not these aims can actually be met in a minority setting where the population of francophones is particularly limited. Achieving these aims in an essentially anglophone environment presents a formidable challenge. As the principal noted: "you're talking about a very, very small group of people totally surrounded by anglophones". The lack of linguistic homogenity among the student in the program may actually hinder the program's ability to reinforce the linguistic identity: In the French first-language, I have children that are francophones. I have children that are anglophones and I have the ones in the middle. So I have three distinct groups of people....I have some children who can't even speak any English and others who speak French hesitantly....I have had some students who were francophones who started picking up the English expressions. (principal) French first-language education in Newfoundland is a program designed for francophones in a minority situation. However, many of the children may not actually come from a purely francophone background. These children may have one parent who speaks or spoke French who may not have passed on the French to their children. One might think that these students would comprise a smaller number of the student population of the French first-language classes. In fact, in some classes in the St. John's school these students may outnumber those whose first language is truly French. Under these circumstances the program may not be able to reinforce the children's linguistic identity as francophones because their first language is very often English: There were five children last year in the French first- language program whose first language was English and they would have had very few children in Kindergarten last year if they hadn't had these children. The great majority of the students that we have in the French school really their first language was English but they had one parent who was francophone except for one case. (principal) There exists a strong relationship between the program's two major goals: to strengthen the linguistic identity and to strengthen the cultural identity. Both aims are intimately related and cannot exist independent of each other. Both aims would normally be achieved through reinforcement by the school, home and the community. However, in St. John's, the community is essentially anglophone and the onus on reinforcing culture thus lies primarily with the home and the school. But what of the children whose home culture is primarily English? Is reinforcing culture a realistic aim for these children? According to the principal, it is a complex problem: The problem is that we have to try to make francophones out of them. This means that we have to try to establish some kind of a culture base for them....And that's fine if the culture is fostered at home but it is not. There are a fair number of our students who go home and they speak English. Yet we're trying in the French school to establish a French culture. Somebody's culture is carried over from the school into the home and into the community. Here we only have the school for some of them. For many of them, their culture is anglophone....You have a group of francophones who are totally surrounded by anglophones and you don't have a base for the culture....How do you define somebody's culture? Just because a child speaks French does not mean that they are francophone.
The francophone community of St. John's is small and also relatively heterogeneous. As was previously noted, its members are not an indigenous population rather they have arrived from various parts of Canada and the world. As a result there is a varying degree of interest in and degree of commitment to having their children in the French school: You have parents from Paris, from St. Pierre, but with the great majority of them, there is a francophone and an anglophone parent. The Frenchmen want their children to be in a French environment. They want their children to be brought up in a French school. The parents have different expectations. Some of the parents have put their children in the French school because of the low numbers. Others put their children in there because it's the French school.(principal) Parents may also hold differing expectations regarding what should be taught in the French school. Many of the parents from France often prefer a more explicit, analytical approach to language teaching, whereas parents of French-Canadian origin generally prefer that their children be educated in the same way as are Canadian children. At the same time, the Department of Education and the school board have adopted an approach which they feel is the most effective way of teaching French language skills. As a result of these differing expectations, parents often disagree among themselves and with those who are setting the curriculum: In the French first-language classes, you don't have a homogeneous group. You have people coming from France with a very different view of schooling versus what francophones who have been living in Newfoundland or coming from New Brunswick have. Their system in France is so different. Their approach to language acquisition is so different from ours. They are great believers that children learn to use language and to read through the phonetic approach and through grammar whereas we're trying to advocate the whole-language approach.... (asst. supt.) Expectations may vary and, at times may not be attainable given the circumstances. This incongruence is particularly true in relation to expectations about what the French first-language program can achieve. Some parents do not fully appreciate the implications for francophone classes of being almost completely surrounded by anglophones: Some of the parents don't have a clear understanding of the implications of being in a totally anglophone society so they expect that the children that come out of here will be the same as those who come out of Moncton but here you are inundated with the anglophone culture.(principal)
The low numbers of francophones in St. John's also places limits on the ability of parents to form a cohesive and forceful group to lobby for French first-language rights. In St. John's, parents were successful in getting classes established, but they have had somewhat less success in achieving the right to control and manage the French first-language classes. Presently, the issue of control and management of French classes is under ministerial review and no definite decision has yet been made as to the role that the parents might eventually play in the administration of the school. Parents are continuing their efforts and have formed a committee "Le Comit‚ des Parents". However, lack of numbers and differing needs, aspirations and expectations may be hindering their efforts to acheive the right to control and manage classes: The French first-language parents are not an homogenous group at all...For example, the people who come from France, their needs and their views on education are very different from the parents who come from New Brunswick. New Brunswick parents are very different from the parents who come from Qu‚bec....We have 2O families in the program. Of the twenty parents, you have, like in most groups, a very hard working, influential, small group of five or six people but there are many other people among these French parents who want to leave the administration to the school. They're not pushing governance, management or control to the same extent. (asst. supt.) The right to minority-language education conferred by the Charter is based largely on enrolment figures because of the "where numbers warrant" provision. To ensure the program's viability, it is important that there be an adequate enrolment. There are many parents who qualify under the Charter to enrol their children in the French first-language classes but who have chosen not to do so. In the upcoming years, the school's French first-language program could be facing serious problems if the enrolment does not increase. Ensuring commitment to the program - commitment which is vital to its survival, is challenging: The Comit‚ des Parents is very clear as to what their mandate is because they work as a network and they meet continually. But certainly they were not getting the support from the people who hold rights and even from people who have their children enroled in the program. One of the frustrations I can see from the French first- language parents is the fact that they have not been able to mobilize the rightholders for French first-language. We have students enroled in French immersion and even in our English stream who are rightholders who could be in the program but who are not and that is really a contentious issue for the parents....Many people, many rightholders are sitting back, waiting to see what's going to happen before they enrol their students. So in that sense it makes the program seem weak in numbers. If the perception by parents is that it's weak in numbers, it might also be weak in quality. So it's difficult to sell the program. (asst. supt.) Not all the parents of children in the French first-language classes are involved in the efforts of the Comit‚ des Parents to gain management rights over the French first-language classes. Furthermore, not all the parents are in agreement with the Comit‚. At times, this can result in some conflict: The Comit‚ des Parents is not seen by all the parents as being the ones in charge....Whatever little disagreement they have with the Comit‚ des Parents they bring it to me....There is dissention in the ranks. They do not agree on what the school should be. (principal)
The purpose of this paper was to consider how a minority setting impacts on the following aspects of French first-language education in St. John's, Newfoundland: the quality of service provided; the program's aim of reinforcing the cultural and linguistic identity of the students; parental expectations; the issue of control and management. In general, the lack of qualified specialist teachers and of support services in French impact negatively on the quality of service which the school can provide. The low number of francophones in the province makes recruiting teachers, especially specialists, an onerous task. The small population means a limited group from which to recruit teachers and substitutes and the geographic isolation restricts choice. The problem of wide variation in French first-language abilities of pupils and problems related to instruction in a weaker language make even more acute the need for remedial and specialized instruction. The entire question of numbers and the population of francophones in Newfoundland and the low proportion of actual francophones in the classes might be considered to have a detrimental effect on the school's ability to effectively achieve the program's intended aims. One of the aims is to reinforce and strengthen the linguistic and cultural identity of francophones in Newfoundland. However, in the school under study, this aim is not easily achieved because of the low numbers of francophones both in the province and in the program. Even among the population of students in the school's French minority-language classes, there are a large proportion of students who have learned English as their first language, speak English in the home, and for whom one parent is an anglophone. This might not present such a problem if, outside of the school, language and culture were reinforced by the environment, but students and the school are immersed in an essentially anglophone culture. The task of reinforcing cultural and linguistic identities thus becomes almost the entire responsibility of the school. Meeting the needs, interests and expectations of parents of children enrolled in the French classes presents many challenges because of the diversity of cultural backgrounds. Parents from France may have different pedagogical expectations than parents from French-Canadian backgrounds. Both groups of parents may expect that the program will provide their children with the equivalent cultural and linguistic experiences as would a program in Manitoba or Moncton. However, for students in an essentially anglophone environment such as would be found in St. John's, these expectations may be somewhat unrealistic. The issue of control and management may not be able to be resolved in favour of the parents where the proportionate numbers of francophones are so small. Parents may be frustrated in their attempts to generate sufficient support or organization from such a small group. The underlying parental support which provided the initial impetus for the start-up of the classes may not have the momentum necessary to ensure then program's continuation. Certain parents may be reluctant to make a commitment to French first- language education if they sense that numbers are low; yet numbers will remain low until parents become committed. In relation to French first-language education in a minority setting such as is found in St. John's, Newfoundland, there are serious challenges and problems related to providing a quality service, achieving the program's intended aims, meeting the expectations of the clientele, and assuring control and management by parents. These challenges and problems lead to a broader questions which are: to what extent is a francophone school viable if the minority is very small; how large should the minority be before consideration is given to establishing classes; before classes are established, should there first be some assurance of the pedagogical feasibility? The challenges and difficulties related to providing French first-language education may be more acute in Newfoundland and in St. John's in particular than in areas where francophones are concentrated in larger numbers. However, the findings reported in this study raise questions about the extent to which French first- language education can be successfully provided to small, isolated francophone communities. In general, the challenges and problems found in this case study may weaken the assumption that French first-language education is a viable, alternative form of education for all francophones, whatever the extent of their minority status may be.
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