The current Federal-Provincial agreement for financial assistance to promote bilingualism in Canada has resulted in a major expansion of instruction in French as a second language in British Columbia (BC). Fifty-nine (of seventy-five) school districts in the province now offer some elementary French instruction during the 1976/77 school year. Most Fr instruction in BC can be classified as involving the "traditional" second-lang approach (involving second-lang study for twenty to forty minutes per day); however, the "immersion approach" is available in a few school districts. This approach involves the use of French as the language of instruction for all subjects during one or more years of schooling. This paper (1) reports the findings of a longitudinal study of the immersion program through the primary grades in one school district in BC & (2) describes the implementation of the BC French Study, an extensive evaluation of the traditional French programs in the province. The immersion study focused on two basic questions: (A) Does instruction through the medium of a child's second language (Fr) have harmful effects on native lang (Eng) skills? (B) How beneficial is the immersion program regarding proficiency in Fr? Results indicate: (a) At the end of kindergarten, immersion pupils show the same degree of readiness for beginning grade one school work as children in the regular English program. (b) At the end of grade one & grade two, immersion pupils lag behind their peers in the regular program in English language skills. Nevertheless, immersion students show substantial transfer of learning to Eng. (c) By the end of grade three, the gap between immersion & regular program pupils in English language skills has been closed, with the exception of spelling for one cohort. (d) Immersion program pupils master mathematics skills at least as well as their peers in the regular program. (e) Immersion program pupils attain a much higher level of proficiency in French than pupils in more traditional French programs. While results of the immersion study clearly suggest that this approach is an effective way to teach French to primary-grade students in BC, the following significant facts must be considered: (i) Recently there has been a large expansion of elementary French instruction in the province. (ii) Most current second-lang activity does not involve the immersion approach. The majority of elementary students are enrolled in traditional French programs. (iii) At present there is virtually no research information available on the traditional French programs in BC. 10 Tables, 1 Figure, Appendixes. AA