France seeks return favor
La. teachers could teach English to French children
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a day, it’s a week, a month or two months. It’s Dr. Brister.” Jerry arbour, on appointing Chief Academic Officer Herman Brister Sr. as acting superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools
For more than 40 years, the French government has recruited teachers to come to Louisiana and try to preserve the special connection this state has to French language and culture.
A small delegation of French education officials in Louisiana this week is, among other things, looking at ways Louisiana can return the favor. Specifically, the idea is to recruit English-speaking teachers to go to France and teach children there to become fluent in English.
The place they are looking for answers is in Louisiana’s small but growing network of French language immersion schools, the largest such concentration in the United States. French immersion programs are offered to 3,715 students in nine parishes, but a new state law calls for the expansion of such programs to 22 parishes. The delegation is visiting 10 states.
“We can feel there’s a special atmosphere here,” Jean-Claude Duthion, head of Cooperation in Education for the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., told the principal of an immersion school in Baton Rouge on Tuesday. “The children look very happy.”
“Sometimes, they’re too happy,” quipped Cheryl Miller, the longtime principal of BR FLAIM, a foreign language immersion elementary school formerly known as South Boulevard. BR FLAIM is an acronym for Baton Rouge Foreign Language Academic Immersion.
Miller said the school, which immerses some children in French and some in Spanish up through the fifth grade, has slowly raised the level of foreign language instruction.
One key shift, Miller said, was having the French and Spanish teachers also serve as the homeroom teachers. So now from the first bell and the taking of the roll, things occur largely in those two languages, she said.
“English is the visiting language, and French is the primary language,” Miller explained.
Philippe Aldon, attaché of Cooperation and Cultural Service for the Consulate General of France in New Orleans, said France has only a few English language immersion schools but would like to have more.
He said public schools in both France and Louisiana should strive to connect children to the world through multiple languages.
“We are really kind of an international school system, where students are in a multi-language environment,” Aldon said.
The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, headquartered in Lafayette, works with Francophone countries to recruit teachers for Louisiana’s French studies programs.
Joseph Dunn, executive director of CODOFIL, said a new teacher exchange program is just one of many different ideas being discussed as Louisiana and France begin negotiations on a new wide-ranging accord. He said many logistical issues will have to be dealt with, including how to handle teacher leave, retirement and certification.
“We’re in very preliminary stages,” Dunn said. “This visit has allowed some new ideas to bubble up.”
The accord, renegotiated every four years, is due to
be signed in France in October.
Aldon, the attaché in New Orleans, said the delegation has also been looking at ways to better support the immersion programs here, including providing more French language materials, developing tests that show mastery of French, promoting expansion of immersion into high schools, and supporting more academic research into immersion.