Is bilingualism a ‘myth’? Poll shows divide between Quebec, other provinces

[SeaKingTacco]

I know you are being sarcastic, but it is true- parents have to know their children and do what is best for them. An education system with some options for various learning styles is what is required.

 

[dimsum]

.

 

[mariomike]

I think there is a lot of value generally in multi-lingualism, but in reality in a lot of places Spanish, Mandarin etc may be a lot more useful as a second language depending on what you actually do.

After English, Mandarin and Cantonese were the most common languages in our customers homes.

 

[brihard]

Generally kids in bilingual schools suffer in STEM scores and grades. If you are looking to put your kids into the public service, then it is a good choice. If they be good at STEM, then no. Taking a 2nd language course is fine,

I’m not looking to ‘put him into’ anything career wise; he’ll make his own decisions there. It’s important to us that he has the language heritage of both sides of his family.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

IIRC, this means more Canadians support bilingualism more than the monarchy.

I would say that it would be more of a "can't be fucked to care" than non-support of the monarchy.

Apart from a lot of cosmetic Head of State things, the average Canadian is indifferent to the monarchy and paid more for the ArriveCan scandal than they do annually for retaining the monarchy.

As for bilingualism.... I think you'll find far more Canadians aggrieved about have 2 languages no one is fluent in both, anywhere in Canada (except pockets of NB), being enshrined in law that affects everything from education, government, industry, and media.

Hell look at the CAF's absymal approach to the OLA and how we promote and employ on linguistic plurality. Its a massive face palm moment working with NATO, where the lingua franca is English, and our folks from 2 Div being out of step for a poor grasp of English. All the while, CO 3 PPCLI is required to have CBC in a language I'm positive he will not need to speak in the course of his tour in that Battalion.

Quebec wanted to protect their ability to use the French language federally, in Québec, to prevent being overrun by the dominant language on both sides of the border.

In true Trudeau fashion, PET made it everyone else's problem to push a personal agenda.

 

[burdseyeflu]

Generally kids in bilingual schools suffer in STEM scores and grades. If you are looking to put your kids into the public service, then it is a good choice. If they be good at STEM, then no. Taking a 2nd language course is fine,

that was me !

How I see it: We didn't speak french at home. I was simultaneously being expect to "build the plane while flying it" in that all subjects were in French. 65% understanding in French means your max understanding in say math, history, science will be 65% at best.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I’m not looking to ‘put him into’ anything career wise; he’ll make his own decisions there. It’s important to us that he has the language heritage of both sides of his family.

I have a Asian wife, she very much about directing them into areas they will be good at. Not quite "Doctor, Engineer or Lawyer" level but close...

 

[dimsum]

I have a Asian wife, she very much about directing them into areas they will be good at. Not quite "Doctor, Engineer or Lawyer" level but close...

That’s very different than the stereotypical “directing them into areas that parents think their kids will be good at” Asian experience.

Or, in some cases, straight up directing them into careers that have more prestige.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

My wife works with a lot of kids and helps many apply to university. She is really good at reading their strength and weaknesses. Our kids get a lot of say, but not completely as we said the funds are for useful stuff, if you want to study basket weaving be prepared to pay for itself. The oldest is currently doing a degree in Communications, with possible a major in English as she wants to be a elementary teacher, but she kind of also wants a challenge. The youngest is deciding between Mechanical Engineering and Nautical Sciences.

She does see the prestige push from parents for kids are totally unable to survive university.

 

[mariomike]

It’s important to us that he has the language heritage of both sides of his family.

I think that hit the nail on the head.

 

[TacticalTea]

I would say that it would be more of a "can't be fucked to care" than non-support of the monarchy.

Apart from a lot of cosmetic Head of State things, the average Canadian is indifferent to the monarchy and paid more for the ArriveCan scandal than they do annually for retaining the monarchy.

As for bilingualism.... I think you'll find far more Canadians aggrieved about have 2 languages no one is fluent in both, anywhere in Canada (except pockets of NB), being enshrined in law that affects everything from education, government, industry, and media.

Hell look at the CAF's absymal approach to the OLA and how we promote and employ on linguistic plurality. Its a massive face palm moment working with NATO, where the lingua franca is English, and our folks from 2 Div being out of step for a poor grasp of English. All the while, CO 3 PPCLI is required to have CBC in a language I'm positive he will not need to speak in the course of his tour in that Battalion.

Quebec wanted to protect their ability to use the French language federally, in Québec, to prevent being overrun by the dominant language on both sides of the border.

In true Trudeau fashion, PET made it everyone else's problem to push a personal agenda.

What you highlight in your very last sentence weighs much more heavily, methinks, than your second-to-last.

I'm sure Remius and friends are quite happy that PET pushed bilingualism so hard.

Bilingualism as a policy is pretty useless both historically and to this day for Francos and Anglos in their respective majority provinces. It's all about protecting minorities.

It's doing a pretty poor job of it though, as most Franco minorities are quickly going extinct with extremely high assimilation rates, and what English-Anglo community might've once existed in Quebec now consists mostly of poorly-integrated migrant communities who already knew English and didn't feel like learning yet another language.

 

[Good2Golf]

I'm not against bilingualism or multilingualism by any means but I would say that there is a huge difference between learning French in school and functional bilingualism.

I took French in Ontario up to Grade 12. I'm now in my late 50's and other than the 4-1/2 years I spent working at DND I've had no exposure to French in either my work life or personal life other than a few vacations to Quebec.

As a result I've lost most of the French I learned in school as you need ongoing exposure to a language in order to maintain proficiency...especially in conversation. I can read well enough to understand most common texts that don't have uncommon vocabulary, but find it extremely difficult to follow along with a conversation as the native speakers speak to quickly and there's too much variation in their accents to follow along. People living in areas where both languages are regularly spoken have much better opportunities to maintain their language skills (which I'm sure is why most people I encounter when in Quebec quickly get a look of pity on their face and switch to English when I try to dazzle them with my high school French!).

Everybody’s mileage will vary, I guess. I had a very positive French environment in Ontario, and took two French courses (Lit and Grammar) as Gd13 credits. I joined the CAF with the old system 4433 and retired with a similar new system EEC, so for me, the Ontario education system gave me everything I needed to work as une tête carrée in the CAF. I totally get that some provinces have never hoisted aboard at least a neutral support position for those who wish to learn French, which I think is a loss TBH. Society gains more from having more channels for communicating…it’s a shame the whole bilingualism thing was turned into as much of an us-them thing as it was.

 

[lenaitch]

It's doing a pretty poor job of it though, as most Franco minorities are quickly going extinct with extremely high assimilation rates, and what English-Anglo community might've once existed in Quebec now consists mostly of poorly-integrated migrant communities who already knew English and didn't feel like learning yet another language.

I'm not so sure. We moved from a bilingual area of Ontario (Penetanguishene) and both the francophone culture and language seems to be quite strong. We are now near North Bay with a smaller but seemingly similarly strong language base. The francophone language and culture in the Sturgeon Falls area to the west remains quite strong.

Except he didn’t have that power, the provinces control education. And most of them would have (and likely still would) resist that requirement. Substantial increase in schooling expense with a decrease in quality for many (some kids just can’t handle two languages as primary instruction).

Like healthcare, dental care, child care and any other area of provincial jurisdiction, the feds get the provinces to get onside to a national program by throwing money at them; sometimes with strings, sometime not.

I would imagine if Trudeau the First had wanted pan-Canadian bilingualism, one of the most dissenting provinces would have been Quebec. They likely would have been unwilling to formally promote English language education and would have faced similar problems in finding fluent teachers for their hinterland. Quebec has been consistently disinterested in French language and cultural issues outside of the Province.

 

[TacticalTea]

I'm not so sure. We moved from a bilingual area of Ontario (Penetanguishene) and both the francophone culture and language seems to be quite strong. We are now near North Bay with a smaller but seemingly similarly strong language base. The francophone language and culture in the Sturgeon Falls area to the west remains quite strong.


Like healthcare, dental care, child care and any other area of provincial jurisdiction, the feds get the provinces to get onside to a national program by throwing money at them; sometimes with strings, sometime not.

I would imagine if Trudeau the First had wanted pan-Canadian bilingualism, one of the most dissenting provinces would have been Quebec. They likely would have been unwilling to formally promote English language education and would have faced similar problems in finding fluent teachers for their hinterland. Quebec has been consistently disinterested in French language and cultural issues outside of the Province.

North Ontario is the exception to the rule haha

Knew someone would mention it.

 

[lenaitch]

North Ontario is the exception to the rule haha

Knew someone would mention it.

Lots of pockets, mostly in the northeast; although I am told (I'm not bilingual) that the spoken language of some is barely French. When the detachment I was in was designated as a bilingual area, we got a staffing increase of four bilingual members. One rookie came from a French-speaking pocket around the Windsor area. Our French speaking folks were mostly from the Hearst area which, I am told, is the French-speaking version of Appalachia. I went to a domestic with him one night - of course I couldn't understand a word - and during an intermission asked him for the 'Coles Notes'. He said he barely understood what they were saying.

 

[dimsum]

North Ontario is the exception to the rule haha

Knew someone would mention it.

Eastern half of Winnipeg as well.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I stopped French in grade 8. And restarted it again at 42 on a year long French course. It was easily the most difficult and time consuming year of my career. I still have random cold sweats thinking I have homework to do. But I got through it and I was successful.

As @rmc_wannabe states we use a really ham-fisted approach to SLT. The staff and school were amazing, its simply the policies and application that are skewed.

If we require CAF members to be bilingual for career growth then we should be teaching this from the get go, not just for selected individuals. At a later point, and feeding them with a firehose. Yes what we are doing is "producing" but there are better ways to do it.

My wife, who is bilingual and a French teacher, was shocked at out methods and approach. I'm lucky I have her, as she was patient with me through that year and really helped me!

This is all kinds of rambling after a night out in Rota, Spain. Anyways, I'm glad I did it, I think we can do it better, I don't think it should be required unless you are reaching the highest levels.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Technically only New Brunswick is a bilingual province, so only it’s schools would be considered bilingual, but we aren’t arguing over whether a school itself is bilingual, but what service can schools provide that support the concept of bilingualism. You are conflating immersion with bilingualism, and that is incorrect as immersion seeks to force learning through unilingualism in a non-maternal tongue.



Again, unsubstantiated qualification with no attempt to quantify…

What % is “so small” as to make it “worthless?”



Then if you are as young as you purport to be, I’d say you didn’t achieve as much learning as others before you. If people made the effort and had the competence to learn French through the elementary and secondary school system of a non-partisan province like Manitoba or Ontario, they could be decently capable in French entering the workforce.



Again, something other than hollow-worded qualifications would give your argument some strength. This is pure anecdotal junk…



View attachment 86153


You sound like you’ve made your mind up that anything other than full immersion is of no value, or worse as it degrades learning in non-linguistic areas of a child’s education in disproportionate ratio to effort spent. Maybe you need to add a little more effort to ‘best’ than ‘hope…’

Immersion can be a variety of different ways. Some schools its all French all the time. Others (like the one my cousins went to) was 50% english 50% French.

Heres some easy data to quantify how low the bilingual rate is

Statistics on official languages in Canada - Canada.ca

Learn about official languages in Canada.

www.canada.ca

Basically outside Quebec and New Brunswick the population which is bilingual is roughly 4-12%. Out of that population roughly 1/4-1/3 of those percentages speak French primarily. It would be very reasonable to assume the vast majority of those French speakers also speak English based off the rates of English speaking. So only 2/3 to 3/4 of that 4-12% (basically 3-9%) are actually primarily English speaking bilingual people

The overall bilingual language rate (when you add in Quebec and New Brunswick) is 18% or so currently. Up from about 12% in 1961.

6% over 60 years is nothing for a change rate. Especially when you consider the outside factors, parents putting kids in things like French Immersion to get a leg up, the internet being primarily English which encourages primarily French speaking people to learn English, etc.

I strongly suspect most the increase in bilingual speakers would be French-English rather than English-French. I also strongly suspect there is a relationship between having a higher household income and being bilingual in the English-French households.

So those mandatory French classes I don’t really think had much of a overall effect on the vast majority of the population. If it did the bilingual rate would be much higher.

Heres a simple anacdote to point out how terrible the average French classes are for us. I was at a table in the mess with our mostly anglophone crew and two francophones who got posted in from the VDQ for the sail. Those two francophones where shit talking everyone at the table in French. I understand enough to get what they were saying. I simply said ‘you guys realize I can understand french?’.

The point is I have the same french schooling background of all 8 other anglophones at that table, yet I was the only one who had any level of conversational skill in it. For most those 9 years are a waste. If you want to create bilingual people just doing a class once a day for a few years doesn’t cut it.

But thanks for assuming I got nothing out of my schooling, my experience has been I got a lot more out of my French classes than most.

 

[Good2Golf]

But thanks for assuming I got nothing out of my schooling, my experience has been I got a lot more out of my French classes than most.

“Nothing? Rather dramatic, don’t you think?

How about actually using my words?

I’d say you didn’t achieve as much learning as others before you

Didn’t achieve as much ≠ nothing.

As well, the Parisien vs Quebecois argument is a dialect thing, not grammar, and that’s something you pick up using the language in practice. Ah you saying your French was not useful because you only knew the « Oh, La Vache! » or « Poutain de merde! » as opposed to the « S’tie’d calisse! » form of conversational French?

 

[daftandbarmy]

I stopped French in grade 8. And restarted it again at 42 on a year long French course. It was easily the most difficult and time consuming year of my career. I still have random cold sweats thinking I have homework to do. But I got through it and I was successful.

As @rmc_wannabe states we use a really ham-fisted approach to SLT. The staff and school were amazing, its simply the policies and application that are skewed.

If we require CAF members to be bilingual for career growth then we should be teaching this from the get go, not just for selected individuals. At a later point, and feeding them with a firehose. Yes what we are doing is "producing" but there are better ways to do it.

My wife, who is bilingual and a French teacher, was shocked at out methods and approach. I'm lucky I have her, as she was patient with me through that year and really helped me!

This is all kinds of rambling after a night out in Rota, Spain. Anyways, I'm glad I did it, I think we can do it better, I don't think it should be required unless you are reaching the highest levels.

Despite herculean efforts, as you have demonstrated (well done!), and huge investments of public funds backed by legislation and immigration policies, French will be going the way of the Dodo bird it seems:

Proportion of French speakers declines in Quebec and nearly everywhere in Canada​

The proportion of Canadians who mainly speak French at home continues to decline in nearly all provinces and territories, including Quebec, the latest census release shows.

Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that the percentage of Canadians who speak predominantly French at home fell to 19.2 per cent in 2021 from 20 per cent in 2016. All provinces and territories saw a drop other than Yukon, where the figure was up from 2.4 to 2.6 per cent.

The federal agency also looks at the proportion of people whose first official language is English or French. It found more than three in four Canadians report English as their first official language, a figure that’s increased over the five-year period.

Proportion of French speakers declines in Quebec and nearly everywhere in Canada | Globalnews.ca

The number of Quebecers who reported English as their first official language topped one million, while one in 10 report speaking predominantly English at home.

globalnews.ca