Supporting A Successful Immersion Experience

Your child's motivation is essential for a successful learning experience. We invite you to review the program together to select the course that is most suited to your child's interests and objectives. 

Your involvement as a parent is equally important to a successful experience. We encourage you to inform your child prior to the start of the year that English only is spoken on campus and that it is the language of instruction with reassurance that teachers will guide beginner students to understand and to communicate. Regular attendance, timeliness, preparedness and a willingness to experience new approaches are also essential to success. If immersion in a new language can be daunting at first, it is also an exciting experience because it places students in a real-life context. Progress will soon follow for students who are proactive during class time and who make the most of the environment provided by the teacher and their peers.

Extension Friend Program

Starting an immersion program can be challenging before a student has reached global understanding. The Extension Friend Program ensures an easier start, a positive and encouraging culture and new friends. Students who are new to the Extension Program are paired with a returning student whose role is to bring support as the new student adjusts to immersion in English. Assistance is age-appropriate and can range from being a friend to play with on the first day, finding one's way on campus, to helping a student understand a task.

English Language Prerequisites

English is the medium of instruction for all courses and specialty activities in primary and secondary programs unless otherwise indicated. Our English language programs are designed to develop language acquisition or development at all levels through a guided immersion in English approach and targeted instruction.

Grouping 

We value a diversity of profiles and interests, and form our groups correspondingly with each student's language learning objectives at heart. We focus on our guiding principle that students learn as much from each other as they do from personal effort and individualized instruction.

In language classes, students are grouped by age and according to their ability to communicate in English: beginner, intermediate, advanced and Anglophone.

For your child to have a successful experience in an English class, placement in the correct level is essential and we rely on the information you provide about your child's exposure to English, prior instruction in English, proficiency and degree of motivation. Please indicate this to the best of your ability. If you do not know, we can assist you. 

We welcome children ages three or four to eighteen years who are eager to participate in an English-only setting. 

Groups range in size from 12 to 16 depending on the session and open when a sufficient number of students are enrolled for it.

Proficiency Tracks

Beginner

The Beginner track acquaints students with foundational vocabulary and language structures, and develops comprehension and communication skills to a degree that they are comfortable in an immersion setting working from authentic material on genuine tasks. Comprehension of native speech or authentic written material through global understanding and inferring meaning forms a large part of class learning. 

Students begin to generate sentences finding ways to get general meaning across, learn to use the major timeframes, and interact in familiar contexts. They are encouraged to be spontaneous, to build communication on memorized phrases, topic vocabulary and learned elements of grammar, to generate sentences and interact with less attention yet to grammatical accuracy. 

To develop listening skills, students become acquainted with native speech through short audio snippets learning to recognize familiar words, pronunciation, intonation and word stress.  

In writing, students learn foundational grammar skills, word order, sentence types and forming paragraphs beginning with presenting information about themselves or familiar topics, concrete poems, cartoons, comics and persuasive posters working their way to simple informational reports and narratives. 

Reading supports language acquisition providing an opportunity to develop cultural awareness and to discover Anglophone authors. 

Intermediate 

The Intermediate track addresses students who are comfortable or independent in an immersion setting, are able to rely on global understanding, and are on their way to becoming confident communicators. Competence is still limited to or strongest in familiar contexts and reliance on a written support is required or helpful to understand native speech in detail.  Vocabulary, idiomatic language and grammar gaps restrict oral and written expression so that communication, though sustained, remains limited. 

The intermediate track focuses on consolidating skills and developing a student’s ability to comprehend and communicate on a wider range of topics with additional exposure to less familiar ones, and to do so more accurately and effectively with less limitations and reliance on the native language. Attention is given to helping students fill in language gaps in areas of oral or written communication, grammar or vocabulary.

Students continue to practice and build on foundational grammar skills with a focus on conjugation while learning the wider use of tenses (perfect and perfect continuous), and how to incorporate varied sentence structure. Language mechanics are consolidated in oral and written communication with more attention to accuracy and organization. 

At intermediate level, students continue to read Anglophone authors to develop an appreciation of literature and non-fiction texts. 

Advanced

At Advanced level, students speak English confidently and accurately enough to get meaning across but still lean on their native language for understanding and communication. They may find themselves challenged by unfamiliar contexts due to a lack of vocabulary and knowledge of idiomatic language. In less familiar contexts, they still rely on global understanding and their native speech. 

The Advanced Track proposes to develop communicative skills encouraging students to be more exact and close to meaning by attention to language accuracy, proper choice of vocabulary and use of complex sentence structures all the while building on cultural competence for better understanding of language. Emphasis is placed on acquiring autonomy in English in social or academic settings by broadening the scope of understanding and communication, and building vocabulary to be more exact and less reliant on the mother tongue. Students are introduced to grade-level authentic material learning to express opinion, form arguments and present information both orally and in writing. Grammar is reviewed as needed.

Exposure to idiomatic language and less familiar topics or themes helps build listening comprehension skills, promote autonomy and better comprehension of detail.  In oral communication, tasks are intended to improve communication in areas of grammatical accuracy, fluency and use of idiomatic expressions. Students are encouraged to be more attentive to form.

In writing, importance is placed on language accuracy, sentence structure and organization. Awareness of voice for a beginning sense of style, of word choice and complex sentence structures to reach effective communication. Features of the main writing forms are learned. 

Students read from grade-level fiction and non-fiction.

Anglophone

The Anglophone Track aligns to a mainstream English or language arts class, and is open to students with near native, to native oral proficiency though competence in writing may not be to equal standards. Students in this class may come from a bilingual/bicultural family or have been educated in an Anglophone school or program in France or abroad. The class focuses on English for academic purposes in oral and written communication, and tasks and expectations are at grade-level. 

Students in this class may be planning entrance to international sections or Anglophone programs though the class cannot be considered as sufficient preparation. Students who need to align writing skills to grade-level standards are supported. Grammar is expected to be mastered and is reviewed as needed.

At a Fluent level, students readily comprehend and communicate with confidence in any context, especially social. Listening and speaking activities or resources serve to introduce content, cultural knowledge and vocabulary to reinforce oral and written work in academic settings.

Students develop effective communication and are encouraged to be exact using choice vocabulary and complex sentence forms. They learn to differentiate formal communication from informal or social speech. Listening activities support oral communication and vocabulary development by inspiring class conversations, discussions, and debates.