The Challenge of Attracting FSL Teachers

The Challenge of Attracting FSL Teachers

Guidelines for better recruitment and retention

By David Jack, Stefan Merchant and Laura Hermans-Nymark

Illustration by Luc Melanson

The job of a principal is a complex one. This complexity requires principals to make many high-stakes decisions, including the hiring of teachers. Whether principals are leading central hiring teams for their districts, or hiring staff for their individual schools, they wield considerable influence on hiring decisions, and bear responsibility for supporting the professional growth and learning of teachers. The complexities of hiring decisions increase in the context of teacher shortages, with the most prevalent and long-standing challenge being the shortage of French as a Second Language (FSL) teachers in Ontario. The Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) recently completed a multi-year study confirming the challenges schools and districts face in finding teachers ready to fill FSL positions. The study also identified several factors that contribute to this challenge, as well as short- and long-term strategies to address the issue.

One of the factors that influences the availability of job-ready FSL teachers stems from the results of French language proficiency assessments. The OPSBA’s recent pan-Canadian study reported close to 90 per cent of English-language school boards across Canada conduct such assessments during their hiring process. That study confirmed the findings of an earlier one, looking at 60 Ontario school boards where approximately one in four FSL teacher applicants fell short of French proficiency expectations during these assessments – further aggravating boards’ efforts to fill vacant positions.

Research on FSL teacher retention identifies links between FSL teachers’ insecurities with their level of French proficiency, and their inclination to seek teaching opportunities in areas other than FSL. French proficiency assessments can play dual roles:

• to gather sufficient information about an applicant’s language skills to satisfy districts’ hiring expectations; and

• to identify starting points in facilitating language development opportunities.

It is critical that any assessment made during the hiring process is robust and defensible, and gives useful, actionable information about the applicant.

Increasingly, this latter role is recognized as a strategy for retaining FSL teachers.

Two key findings from the OPSBA’s most recent study relate specifically to the role of principals in hiring FSL teachers:

• the responsibility to conduct these assessments most often falls to principals, usually those who speak French; and

• the assessment protocols that principals are required to use with FSL teacher applicants may not align with fair assessment principles. This is especially concerning given the high-stakes nature of the assessment itself.

The OPSBA study found that the evaluation of the applicant’s response is typically based on holistic impressions and not rated against a rubric, and that few principals have the opportunity to confer with colleagues about their impressions of the applicant’s French proficiency before making a final decision. Given the importance of hiring decisions for the school, students and principals, it is critical that any assessment made during the hiring process is robust and defensible, and gives useful, actionable information about the applicant. Since almost all schools have FSL teachers on staff, even principals who are not directly involved in conducting these assessments have a vested interest in their quality and outcomes.

For principals who conduct French proficiency assessments when hiring FSL teachers, or for those with questions about the assessment process used in their district, we offer five guidelines.

Each guideline offers advice on how to improve the process of assessing French language proficiency and is supported by research and accepted effective practices in language assessment. The practicality and ease of implementing each guideline will vary from district to district and school to school, but making even one positive change can result in stronger evidence of an applicant’s French proficiency, leading to better hiring decisions and FSL instruction in schools.

Guideline 1: Separate the assessment of French language proficiency from other parts of the hiring process.

Assessing a candidate’s French language proficiency by asking questions during the employment interview creates several problems. The first is that it limits how many questions can be asked, and it places constraints on the content of those questions.

It can be tempting to use an interview prompt such as, “Tell us your philosophy of inclusion” in French because this can potentially give information about the candidate’s French language skills and their philosophy of inclusion. However, asking such questions does a disservice to the candidate for several reasons. The first is that applicants learning French as an additional language (the majority of applicants in Ontario) are

unlikely to be able to articulate a complex topic such as their philosophy of inclusion in French as well as they can in their first language, and so are disadvantaged during the interview.

The second is that the language and vocabulary required to answer such a question do not reflect the type of language and vocabulary they will need when teaching French. Finally, candidates are often nervous during an interview, and this can negatively impact their language performance, especially if the opportunity to demonstrate their language skills is limited to one or two questions.

Separating the French language assessment from other components of the hiring process yields two advantages. First, with more time for verbal interaction, the assessment outcomes become a more valid reflection of the applicant’s proficiency in French. Second, with less focus on the larger topics of curriculum or general pedagogy, the assessment can be crafted to pinpoint specific areas of language teaching.

Guideline 2: Focus on the language skills teachers need.

We expect teachers to be good language role models, but this is only part of the job. FSL teachers also explain, instruct, thoughtfully respond to students’ errors, provide feedback and manage the classroom. The assessment tasks should reflect the ways in which FSL teachers use language in their job. For instance, questions that ask applicants to respond to a hypothetical scenario will prompt speakers to engage in the type of language used with students as well as demonstrating their use of vocabulary, verb regulation, syntax and so on.

Guideline 3: Create and communicate expected standards of French language proficiency.

As part of the OPSBA study, we looked at the websites of 86 different school districts across Canada and found that only 11 of them contained any information about their French language proficiency requirements or assessments, and none of them gave any detail about the assessments applicants would be required to complete when applying for FSL positions.

The act of creating French language proficiency expectations naturally leads to important conversations about what language skills and proficiencies you are looking for in your FSL teachers. Communicating those expectations helps applicants understand what level of proficiency they should have, or aspire to, if they want to work in your school or district. Known, shared expectations also reduce the inconsistency associated with evaluating applicants’ French language proficiency using holistic impressions.

Guideline 4: Decide who the evaluators are going to be and ensure they have the requisite skills.

The principals selected to conduct French language proficiency assessments usually self-identify as being able to complete the assessment. Self-identification is a reasonable first step, but it needs to be followed with training and collaboration with other principals in the district. The aim of this training and collaboration is to ensure that everyone understands what language skills are being assessed, and is evaluating to common expectations. The evaluation of an applicant’s French language skills should be consistent regardless of who does the evaluation.

Guideline 5: Assessments can be formative as well as summative.

In a labour market where finding FSL teachers can be challenging, some districts and schools find themselves hiring teachers whose French language proficiency is below what is hoped for. In these cases, the assessment information gained during the application process can provide immediate constructive feedback to the applicant and may serve to inform language development plans for this teacher, once in the job.

If the assessment reveals the candidate has strong oral skills but struggles with verb conjugation in their writing, this provides useful information for the principal and the candidate on how to move forward with their language development.

What’s next?

As part of our research, four school boards in Ontario (Upper Canada, Hamilton-Wentworth, Peel and Durham) are currently engaged in pilot projects to review and revise their existing French proficiency assessment protocols in light of the guidelines discussed above.

While principals are central to the work in these pilot projects, the projects are meeting success through collaboration between principals, human resources officials, program support staff and a local faculty of education. Collectively, the projects are guided by these questions:

• What do we mean when we say “proficiency”?

• Does our assessment process lead to consistent assessment between different evaluators?

• How does our assessment account for potential bias in evaluating French proficiency?

• Does our assessment process document evaluation results that can be shared with an applicant? Results from these pilot projects will be included in a tool kit for developing French language proficiency assessments. The tool kit will provide assessment tools and procedures that have been piloted and field tested in various school districts and faculties of education across Canada, and is due for publication by OPSBA in 2023–24.

Hiring FSL teachers with strong French language proficiency can enhance the quality of French instruction for students, provide evidence for a language development path if needed and ultimately improve FSL teacher retention. For these benefits to be realized, the assessment tools and processes must be intentionally designed to provide the high-quality information needed for high-stakes decision-making.

The aim of this training and collaboration is to ensure that everyone understands what language skills are being assessed, and is evaluating to common expectations.

The Ontario Principals’ Council has provided support to the research being conducted by OPSBA through its participation on the FSL Partnership Committee. In addition, as a means of supporting recruitment and retention of FSL teachers, the OPC has partnered with OPSBA, the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario (CPCO) and a few school districts to offer online modules for principals and vice-principals.

Dr. David Jack is the project manager for OPSBA’s FSL Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy initiative: French Language Proficiency Assessment Toolkit. @wdjackjack

Dr. Stefan Merchant is an adjunct assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University and project lead for the French Language Proficiency Assessment Toolkit initiative.

Dr. Laura Hermans-Nymark is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Education at Western University, and a researcher for the French Language Proficiency Assessment Toolkit initiative.

Resources

i) Mason, R., and M. Schroeder. 2010. “Principal Hiring Practices: Toward a Reduction of Uncertainty.” The Clearing House 83, 186-93.

ii) Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. 2019. Meeting Labour Market Needs for French as a Second Language Instruction in Ontario – Understanding Perspectives Regarding the French as a Second Language Teacher Labour Market Issue.

iii) Wernicke, M. 2020. Linguistic Insecurity – Qu’est-ce que c’est? Research Brief, Canadian Parents for French.

iv) Wernicke, M. 2020. “Orientations to French Language Varieties among Western Canadian French-as-a-second language Teachers.” Critical Multilingualism Studies 8(1), 165–90.

v) Swanson, P. 2012. “Second/Foreign Language Teacher Efficacy and Its Relationship to Professional Attrition. Canadian Modern Language Review 68(1), 78-101.