The International Languages Program held at St Anthony School
Our Saturday morning classes for Cantonese and Mandarin are funded by the Ministry of Education's International Languages Program and staffed by the OCSB and hosted at the St Anthony School.
Starting as a non-profit before joining the Heritage Program, we have been helping students acquire the Chinese language in Cantonese since 1980, and in Mandarin since 2011.
Our program is non-denominational, and are held Saturday mornings during the academic year. The elementary program is hosted at St Anthony School in downtown Ottawa, near the heart of Chinatown, at 391 Booth Street.
Classrooms at St Anthony School are outfitted with SmartBoard screens. Each classroom has a Dell laptop from your Parent Association Council with software for SmartNotebook from the OCSB.
What are Parent Groups?
Parent groups comprise the parents of any students who are learning the target language, and as such they represent the students. These parents may belong to the linguistic community of the language of study, or they may be interested in having their children participate for other reasons, such as educational enrichment.
Membership in parent groups is therefore not limited to parents who are registered members of a specific community organization. Parent or guardian groups can be actively involved in the ILE program. For instance, they can:
• assess the needs and expectations of the local community over issues such as the type of program and the location, number, and schedule of classes;
• recruit parent volunteers and resource people;
• encourage parents to follow established procedures for expressing concerns about any aspect of the program;
• get involved in committees that support the work of the ILE program and instructors;
• assist in the development of age-appropriate learning experiences for all ILE students;
• form connections with parents, volunteers, and community representatives of their own and other ILE programs for the overall development of the entire ILE program.
International Languages, Elementary (ILE) Program, 2012 Resource Guide