Language skills and the social integration of Canada's adult immigrants

Another indicator of the importance that the federal government puts on proficiency in an offi- cial language is the recent implementation of language testing in the country of origin for peo- ple applying for the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) (CIC 2011a). [...] A principal goal of the research was to compare the linguistic development of the two language groups, where variables such as length of time in the country, general education level and initial language instruction in Canada could be held constant. [...] The English-language development of the immigrants was gauged in a variety of ways, but the measures of most interest here came from listening experiments in which native speakers used 9-point Likert scales to assess randomized speech samples taken at the outset of the study, the two-year point and the seven-year point. [...] The native listeners perceived no significant progress in the Mandarin group from the first time they were tested to the last on any of the three measures of accent, comprehensibility and fluency. [...] The Mandarin and Slavic-language groups differed in other ways that may explain their lin- guistic outcomes: the nature and quality of their exposure to English, cultural differences in willingness to communicate, perceived efficacy of language training, and perceptions of the challenges of adjusting to life in Canada.