Academic achievement in English: Minority home language students in early French immersion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Aims and Objectives: Increasingly, students who speak a minority language at home (minority-L1) enroll in Early French Immersion in Canada. A frequent question is the extent to which they develop academic abilities in English. Accordingly, this study asks: (a) Do a similar percentage of minority-L1 students meet provincial standards for academic achievement when tested in English when they attend French immersion compared to English language of instruction? (b) What are the outcomes for minority-L1 students with relatively low English proficiency? and (c) What factors contribute to minority L1-students’ academic achievement when evaluated through English? Methods: We compared performance on province-wide assessments of English reading, writing, and mathematics for Grade 3, minority-L1 students enrolled in French immersion ( n = 196) and in English ( n = 169). Data and Analysis: Chi-square analyses compared the percentage of participants meeting the provincial standard in each academic domain in French immersion and English programs. Predictors of performance within two English proficiency groups ( low and not low ) were investigated using binary logistic regression analyses. Findings and Conclusions: In each domain, a similar percentage of minority-L1 students in French immersion and in English met the provincial standard, illustrating that immersion programs are suitable for minority-L1 students. Logistic regression revealed some overlap in individual difference factors, but the constellation of significant predictors differed for students with low English proficiency and those with relatively higher levels of proficiency. Individual learner profiles need to be considered when determining how to support these students. Originality: This study specifically considered performance of minority-L1 students across programs and examined if predictors of achievement in English are comparable for students with different levels of English proficiency. Significance: As school boards work to improve inclusivity within their programs, this study offers much needed evidence concerning the performance of minority-L1 students in dual language programs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".