The language options system : “parcours langue”

Starting this school year, the new language options system known as the « parcours langues » has been implemented from CE2.

This new system for teaching languages is the result of a consultation that included teachers and parents. What’s new is its modular nature, combining four classes split between English and Japanese, with an additional CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) class. This CLIL class is optional for the people choosing the « balanced path » that is evenly divided between English and Japanese. We welcome this new system with a lot of enthusiasm, but also high expectations.

Sections: a certain type of bilingualism

Another new thing this year is that the bilingual classes now range from pre-K to the last year of elementary school.

Currently, bilingual classes is restricted to French/English, something we believe is quite regrettable. On the other hand, we believe these special classes, in the form that they exist in today, create a risk of partitioning the school population. This impedes the quality and diversity of exchanges between pupils by separating them according to language skills.

However, we believe there is a simple solution to this problem. By replacing these classrooms with “sections”, that would function in the same way as the « European section » class in secondary school. The pupils would thus be intermingled during daily activities except for the language class where they would be regrouped by section.

Our Commitment

Our commitment for this school year is to make sure that parents and pupils’ language/class/section choices made in June are thoroughly examined and discussed before the end of the school year. This will avoid the problems we witnessed this September regarding the new language options system. We will also be paying close attention to the way the language options classes are taught, and whether the bridges between the various choices are actually workable as promised.