The public school board of Windsor, Ont., has decided to venture deeper into the multicultural forest by offering what it calls Arabic immersion instruction at an elementary school where 50 per cent of the pupils speak Arabic as a first language.
But the decision has immediately raised eyebrows at Ontario’s Ministry of Education over what constitutes “immersion.”
A spokeswoman for the ministry said yesterday that its officials will meet with Windsor’s Greater Essex County District School Board to explore exactly what sort of program it intends to present.
Mary Jean Gallagher, the board’s director of education, conceded that obstacles are surfacing that weren’t entirely anticipated.
Under the education acts of Ontario and other provinces, immersion is specifically defined as second-language instruction in English or French, which is eligible for official-languages education funding from the federal government.
The Edmonton school board, a leader in second-language instruction for 30 years, offers instruction in six languages - including Arabic - in addition to French and English, but avoids calling its non-official language programs immersion. Instead, it labels them “bilingual” and limits instruction in them to 40 per cent of total enrolment.
Stuart Wachowicz, the Edmonton board’s director of curriculum services, said the term immersion was avoided not only to circumvent confusion with official languages instruction but also to signal to students and their families that proficiency in Canada’s official languages is the board’s priority.
University of Toronto sociologist Jeffrey Reitz, one of Canada’s leading experts on multiculturalism, said: “Generally our multicultural philosophy [in Canada] still requires public education to be in one of the official languages.”
At the same time, extensive research in Edmonton and elsewhere strongly indicates that students literate in their first language are more adept at acquiring English or French.
University of Windsor sociologist Reza Nakhaie, another academic specialist in multiculturalism, said research shows that if children of immigrants do not feel alienated from their family’s language and culture, they adapt most readily to Canadian culture and values.
The Windsor Arabic program is scheduled to begin for children from kindergarten to Grade 2 in F.W. Begley Public School in September, although principal Rookaya Parak said she’s not sure exactly how it will work.
She plans to examine similar programs in Cincinnati and Dearborn, Mich., across the Detroit River from Windsor, which has the largest Arabic-speaking population of any community outside the Middle East and North Africa.
Both Ms. Gallagher of the Windsor board and Mr. Wachowicz of the Edmonton board cited a number of private Arabic-language schools that have been started in their areas. They argued that children had a greater opportunity to integrate into mainstream Canadian society by staying in the public school system.
