At Tuesday night’s Board meeting, a presentation was made that highlighted exciting developments in Algoma District School Board’s French as Second Language (FSL) programming. Nancy Rancourt, ADSB’s K-8 FSL Administrator along with K-12 FSL Special Assignment Teacher Tracy Reid and teacher/monitrice de langues and CEFR Aurélia Pécheux shared how these developments will help to increase students’ confidence, proficiency and achievement in their ability to use their French language skills.
The DELF (Diplome d’études en langue française) is recognized internationally as an official certification of second-language proficiency and tests the ability of students to use French in real-life situations. In the spring of 2017 the DELF exam will be offered to Grade 12 students in the Algoma District School Board (ADSB). ADSB is one of over half the school boards in Ontario who will be participating in the FSL Student Profiency DELF Pilot Project with students writing this internationally-recognized language exam.
The DELF exam is offered by the Centre International d’Études Pédagogiques (CIEP) to assess language skills of people whose first language is not French. Testing is based on the six reference levels identified in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The CEFR provides a comprehensive overview of competencies that French language learners need to develop in order to communicate and interact effectively. It is the backbone to the revised French Second Language (FSL) curriculum in Ontario and has now become accepted as a way of benchmarking language ability all over the world.
This summer, Algoma District School Board (ADSB) offered DELF Correcteur training. Twenty-eight ADSB educators took part in an intensive 4-day training session including FSL teachers from both elementary and secondary panels, Long Term Occasional teachers, administrators, program team members and the Director of Education. Training in August was facilitated by one of Canada’s leading experts in the CEFR, Denis Cousineau, a sought-after Provincial leader, trainer and scorer.
Successful candidates worked towards obtaining a Certificate from the CIEP in France. The certification is recognized in 167 countries in the world and allows the recipient to administer and score the DELF examinations.
Many of the successful educators were on hand at the board meeting to receive their official certificates and were congratulated for earning this valuable certification.
