I honestly don’t think that the early French immersion program is a good choice. The late program is a much better system.
Proponents say that it offers a wider variety of choices to our students. They mean the kindergarteners and the Grade 1s? Kids that age don’t know what they what; at that point it’s not their choice, it’s the parents’ choice.
I was in EFI when I was still living in Abbotsford, and I hated it. I begged my parents to take me out of it every year, but I was stuck in it until we moved here to Chilliwack, where I was finally safe from EFI, and got to choose to stop doing French after Grade 10.
EFI was a terrible experience for me. Being forced to speak a language I didn’t want to all day, and being punished for letting the occasional English slip out. Kids in EFI aren’t French linguists and don’t know it all yet, and yet still get punished for not knowing words in French. Anyway, I read The Progress article (Board to vote on early French immersion, May 14) and this subject hit pretty close to home, so I felt something needed to be said.
Adrian Barrie