Literacy engagement in the extended French and French immersion programmes (Grades 4–6)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines literacy engagement of plurilingual students from bilingual programmes. The mixed-methods research was a formative home intervention with Grade 4–6 Extended French and French Immersion students during the summer. The students were reading for pleasure in L1, writing summaries and participating in weekly discussions, which helped to investigate how their first language use impacted literacy engagement in L1 (Russian), L2 (English) and L3 (French). The analysis of the four components of literacy engagement for each language reflected that L1 use in literacy activities not only greatly enhanced literacy engagement in the first language, but it facilitated L2 and L3 literacy engagement. Affective use of L1 influenced cognitive component of literacy engagement in L2 and activity-based component of L3, enhancing overall literacy engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Literacy engagement
• plurilingual literacy
• plurilingual students
• allophone students
• French immersion
• bilingual programmes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marina Antony-Newman

Marina Antony-Newman is a graduate from the Language and Literacies Education programme at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto whose work is on plurilingual literacy development and engagement, use of technology in plurilingual education. This project explored literacy development and engagement of allophone students who attend bilingual programmes in Canada. Prior to graduate studies, Marina taught ESL to diverse students in Canada and Europe for more than fifteen years. She is currently working on an online project which involves the use of students' first language for the acquisition of subsequent languages.