Project Overview
- Research topics
- Region: National
- Project Overview
Project status
- Completed :
- Phase 1 - April 2020-March 2021
- Completed :
- Phase 2 - April 2021-March 2022
- In progress :
- Phase 3 - April 2022-March 2024 (funding may be renewed)
Project manager or
resource person
- Nicole Thibault
- Network CEO, and Shivaanie Jadoonanan, Project Coordinator
Canadian Parents for French (CPF) – National
Virtual French Tutoring
With the advent of COVID-19 school closures in spring 2020 and distance learning, parents with children enrolled in French Second Language (FSL) programs expressed frustrations providing support for their child, especially those who do not speak French. Following the success of the 2020-2021 pilot project, which involved 459 virtual volunteers and 539 students, requests for the CPF tutoring support program are continuously increasing across Canada.
CPF is carrying on the tutoring support program until the end of March 2024 in ten Canadian provinces. Students in primary and secondary schools enrolled in FSL programs, who are in need of support to maintain or improve their French-language learning, are matched with a French-speaking volunteer. The duo meets via videoconferencing once a week for an hour to review and complete school assignments, offer help with homework, speaking or reading practice, and any additional support as determined by students with their parents’ guidance. CPF, in partnership with its branches, coordinates the matches, offers an initial orientation to volunteers, schedules virtual platforms for weekly meetings, provides technical assistance, compiles and shares resources to support second-language instruction outside the classroom, and answers questions as needed. To provide support and improve the experience of the volunteers, weekly group chats are held to foster a networking environment among volunteers.
Children are encouraged to converse in French via a monthly group chat or book club. A webinar component is being developed for parents to provide information on the experience. These conversational opportunities allow over 500 children and their parents to socialize despite social distancing measures caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
In pursuing this tutoring program, FSL students and parents greatly benefit from online learning opportunities by connecting regularly with a French-speaking volunteer. Students have many occasions to learn and use their second language. In addition, the library of resources created to support the program is being made available in various contexts of second-language teaching.
Targeted Results
Main takeaways (learnings)
- There is an immense need for French support outside the classroom, across the country, to keep students and families supported and enrolled in French immersion.
- Virtual programming serves the tutoring format well - flexible for family schedules, easier to recruit volunteers who can tutor from home.
- Offering potential FSL teachers the opportunity to tutor allows them to explore teaching as a potential career path (exposure), filling a void and a need that is not being met by other organizations.
- The non-academic focus has been popular with students /parents who want opportunities to practise with a francophone in their areas of interest, outside of school subjects and with like-minded people.
- While there are many existing private tutoring services, most are expensive as they need to pay their tutors, make a profit or break even. Low cost makes it accessible to all families - CPF can offer this by working with volunteers and the project salaries are subsidized by our core program funding.
Potential/desired collaborations
- For a sponsor organization to help build it into a cost recovery program.
- For complementary teacher training activities (practise for volunteers).
