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ABSTRACT
In the early 1960s, a dozen parents in the South Shore Montreal suburb of St. Lambert sought out academic specialists in cognition and language learning at McGill, psychologist Wallace Lambert and neurologist Wilder Penfield. The result was an experiment that began at Margaret Pendlebury Elementary School in St. Lambert in 1965. The highly successful experiment led to the widespread introduction of French Immersion in Canada, and around the world, but its success was based on a number of key elements: parental support, the political environment, and the fact that French was easily accessible as a public language outside the school. Despite the success of the program, myths have persisted to the effect that immersion makes it harder for students to learn English. New myths have emerged, suggesting wrongly that immersion is inappropriate for immigrants to Canada, and that immersion programs are exclusively for elite students, and that immersion is the only way to master French as a second language. Second language learning has also become a priority in Quebec, with the introduction of a semester of intensive English for Grade 6 students in French-language schools. This has proven to be controversial for some, but has strong majority support from parents, who think their children have a much better chance at succeeding in life if they are bilingual.
Ginette Munson looks back on her time at Margaret Pendlebury Elementary School with warmth and pride. It began in 1967, when she joined an experimental program that had begun in 1965, teaching Grade 4 to the very first class of French immersion students.
Originally from New Brunswick, Ms. Munson was living in Saint-Lambert, a suburb on the south shore of Montreal. Her husband, Jim Munson, was then a radio reporter, and her father-in-law was a minister in Saint-Lambert.
She was the first Canadian teacher hired to teach at the Saint-Lambert experiment; for the first two years, the teachers had been European. Even though she came late to the experiment, she knew right away that the project was succeeding.
"I had a great feeling of working for a successful project," she told me, recalling the parents' enthusiasm, the teachers' pride and the researchers' commitment. "The collaboration with McGiIl was extraordinary."
All of this was happening in...