Educating language minority children in Canada is becoming increasingly challenging as our population becomes more and more diverse. Determining the best educational policy to help immigrant children learn English or French, while furthering their knowledge of core subject material has long been a difficult task for educators in the public system. This novel is a fictional account of an immigrant girl's first year in an Ontario elementary school. Through her experience, I describe a language policy whereby children have access to bilingual primary education no matter what their first language is. Two-way immersion is offered for language minority groups with significant numbers of students within a district. And, in collaboration with the community, first language support in school is given to students of all language backgrounds. I propose a teacher training programme that better prepares teachers for the linguistic diversity in their classrooms and promotes foreign language learning in teachers themselves. Children under this system are able to acquire the dominant language of society, learn the subject material, and continue to develop literacy skills in their first language. With such policies in place, I argue, Canada could be a world leader in bilingual education for diverse populations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.112517 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Smith, Karina Yarwood. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Culture and Values in Education.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002711404, proquestno: AAIMR51405, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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