Are brief contact experiences and classroom language learning complementary?

Abstract

This paper presents the perspectives of a Grade 6 French immersion class from Ontario on a brief exchange experience with franco-phone peers from Quebec, and describes how this experience complemented their classroom language studies. An earlier study of immersion graduates indicated that students who had had contact with native speakers during their immersion studies attained higher French proficiency and integrated French more into their daily lives after graduation than those who had not. The results of that research led to the hypothesis that certain classroom language learning limitations may be overcome by providing young learners with opportunities for contact with native speakers outside the classroom. This paper reports results of a case study of an exchange between two Grade 6 classes. The study examined immersion students' perception of the operation of both social and cognitive/linguistic processes in the classroom and in the exchange context, the areas in which the classroom context and the exchange context were complementary, and the possible pedagogical implications.