he pride of Canada, its multicultural mosaic, has much to offer in terms of tolerance and simple quality of life. However, just as countless other countries struggle to adapt to increasing immigration and globalization, so, too, does Canada. One obvious area of contention is found in the classrooms of Canadian schools as they are forced to deal with growing numbers of students who speak English as a second language (ESL).
Every school board in Canada works with newly arriving immigrant and refugee ESL populations differently. Some school boards choose, when adequate funds are available, to have Reception Centres (facilities where all non-English-speaking students enroll and receive counseling and assessment). An informal survey of administrators across Canada indicates that this is mainly true in the larger, urban school districts where there are significantly greater numbers of students. Other school districts with smaller ESL student populations choose to have their students enroll directly in their neighborhood schools. Either way, it has been historically perceived that providing instruction in one of Canada's official languages (English or French) was, and is, of paramount importance.
For the purposes of this article, we focus on how relatively recent immigration factors in the urban environment of Vancouver, British Columbia, the westernmost province of Canada, affect language education and policies at the local and provincial levels. To get an overview of these factors, we used statistical information from numerous sources, including government and school board documents. We also conducted an informal survey among teachers and administrators at Vancouver schools to gain insight on their institutions' language programs as well as their impressions of existing teacher training programs. Along with our background knowledge of this particular locale, we use this information to illustrate how these factors manifest themselves in the reality of the classroom environment in this specific situation.