What is P.E.L.O.?
The P.E.L.O. program aims to improve the students knowledge of their heritage language and gives greater depth to the students' understanding of human experience by fostering an appreciation of the customs and achievements of people within their communities.
For many years now our School Board has offered Heritage Language courses (Programme de l'enseignement des langues d'origine), in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.
Objective
These classes encourage mutual respect among cultures and are one of the best ways to achieve harmony in diversity. They are usually offered to students in Grades 1 to 6 only. These courses are offered in Hebrew, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Arabic or other.
This program offers the following advantages:
- its objectives conform to the Ministry of Education norms;
- it provides quality teaching;
- the program is integrated into the educational project of the school;
- there is now growing appreciation of the role that multilingual individuals can play in a increasingly diverse society, and there is also greater understanding of the academic and cognitive benefits that may accrue from learning their heritage language;
- knowledge of a third language can give our students a competitive advantage in the workforce by opening up additional job opportunities;
- promoting the students' language and culture within a formal course recognizes alternative ways of expression and the value of the child’s culture;
- students will have the ability to communicate with more people, read more literature, and benefit more fully from travel to their country of origin.