These secondary school students in grades 10-12 had a background
in either core French or immersion. Core French means a “traditional”
program in second language instruction with 40 minutes of
instruction in French as a second language daily. French immersion
programs fall into two categories: early immersion begins at kindergarten
and involves instruction only in French (later some English is
introduced); late immersion begins at grade 8 and up to 80% of the day
is devoted to instruction in French. This continues until the start of
secondary school where both early and late immersion students may
take two to four school subjects through the medium of French each
year. The students’ use of language while in Quebec was analysed. One
issue looked at was the role of out-of-class or informal contact with the
target language in the development of proficiency, which seems to be
an important issue in the study abroad experience (Regan 1995,
Dewaele 1995, Marriott 1995, Freed 1995).