
Y. BOUCHAMMA ET AL.
for writing” (a38). Indeed, francophone students reported the
lowest frequency of out loud readings in their class compared to
the four other linguistic groups, [FWelch (4,418.591) = 30.532, p
< .001]. Among all five linguistic groups, francophone students
revealed referring less frequently to other resources such as
Internet, a computer, and the library, [FWelch (4,365.081) = 29.291, p
< .001].
Finally, the results showed significant differences between
the linguistic groups on the variable “writing explanation and
evaluation” (a42), [F(4,11 605) = 22.671, p < .001]. Allophone
students reported requiring more frequent explanations and
evaluations related to their writing in their “courses other than
French” compared to their francophone, anglophone, and multi-
lingual counterparts.
Discussion and Conclusion
This study was conducted using the cross-country data ob-
tained from the the School Achievement Indicators Program—
Writing III (SAIP, 2002). Our findings show that the five lin-
guistic groups in Canada do not perform at the same level. In
order, the francophone students achieved the highest scores,
followed by the multilingual, anglophone, allophone, and abo-
riginal students.
Similar achievement levels were observed between allophone
students and the other groups, with the exception of the abori-
ginal students, who failed in approximately 60% of cases. This
observation concurs with results of other studies showing that
immigrant children who initially have weak outcomes in Cana-
dian schools catch up to non-immigrant children in reading, wri-
ting, and mathematics around the age of 13 (Worswick, 2001).
Regarding the locus of control, we found that compared to
the other linguistic groups, the allophone students had a ten-
dency to refer to a more internal locus of control. Studies indi-
cate that an internal locus of control increases the level of mo-
tivation. This aspect was mentioned by the OECD who noted
the motivation and positive attitude of immigrant students with
regard to school and who recommended that schools take the
necessary actions to facilitate learning for this specific student
population in order to help them succeed (OECD, 2006).
As for the extracurricular practices, allophone students were
shown to spend the most amount of time outside of class hours
doing activities associated with learning to write and to home-
work unrelated to writing outside of class hours.
A more recent Programme for International Student Achieve-
ment (PISA) showed that Canada was one of the countries in
which performance differences were relatively non-significant
between immigrant students and those of the host country who
generally benefited from established language support pro-
grams with clearly defined objectives and norms (OECD, 2006).
However, this same organization stated that Canada, along with
other OECD countries, showed significant performance differ-
ences associated with the language spoken in the home, despite
the education and professional status of the parents (OECD,
2007).
Moreover, if we examine the practices teachers must adopt to
improve the academic achievement of allophones—which is so
close to that of the other linguistic groups (with the exception
of aboriginal students), we may conclude that no “universal”
solution exists for immigrant students. Immigrants in Canada
are a heterogeneous ensemble whose paths differ from one
group to another. The effectiveness of teaching these students
therefore depends on target programmes (McAndrew et al.,
2009).
Regarding the allophone students who participated in this
study, their characteristics are unknown (number of years since
their arrival in Canada, whether they went through preparatory
programmes), thus we ultimately question whether this sample
is representative of all immigrant students, including those with
learning difficulties.
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