Language Policy on a Global Scale

In this post marking my nine-year anniversary of blogging (less frequent postings now, to be sure), it seems fitting that my topic should be language policy.  I just got back from a two and a half week trip to Thailand and Vietnam, occasioned by a conference on language law and language policy in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Scholars from around the world came together to discuss various ways in which language policies and laws intersected with issues of ethnic conflict, and ways in which such policies could (or had) been used to hopefully mitigate such conflicts.  It was the second time that I'd attended this particular gathering (the last time was 2006 in Ireland), and I was struck once again by both the similarities of the challenges facing states around the world, but also the vast differences in contexts and needed approaches.  Many of the presentations that I attended had to do with language revitalization of indigenous languages in the developing world, particularly Latin America and Asia, where the core issues are quite substantially different from those of English-French bilingualism in Canada, and much more connected to revitalization of our own First Nations' languages.  For many of these countries, the key issues relate to illiteracy and/or marginalization of linguistic minority communities, often linked to violent ethnic conflict, and language revitalization is intended as a tool to promote both literacy and (more importantly for many of these states) national cohesion.  It was a stimulating conference that left me feeling re-energized for working on my book over the next year.

Language practice on the ground was also fascinating.  It's hard to ignore the prevalence of English as a global language when traveling.  We were able to get by with virtually no Thai or Vietnamese in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Hanoi.  In Vietnam in particular, there was ample English signage at the museums and travel points.  That being said, both my husband and I wished we could have spoken culinary Vietnamese to more fully sample the host of delicious foods that were available.  We did very well with the places with bilingual menus, and with pointing and gesturing elsewhere, but we definitely got a strong sense that being able to ask more directly for the wonderful things surrounding us would have led to an even richer experience.

Wishing you all a happy end to 2012, and great things to come in 2013!

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French Immersion in Peel Region - Plus ça change

The Peel District School board in Ontario has made headlines this week for an all-too-familiar Canadian problem: burgeoning enrollment in French immersion, and limited capacity to accommodate the student demand.  Sadly, the board has resulted to a tried-and-failed approach to dealing with this problem - using a lottery system to determine which students will be admitted to the program.  Today, the Globe and Mail has dedicated one of its editorials to criticizing this short-sighted policy.

It is an all-too-familiar problem in this country, and one which you'd think we might have solved by now.  French immersion has been around longer than I have, and yet the current situation faced by the Peel board has been repeated in province after province, board after board, over the past 40 years.  Lotteries, line-ups and other limited access solutions have caused outrage and problems in community after community.  Indeed, I've published an article on how a similar situation in Sackville, New Brunswick in the early 1980s was the impetus for a new province-wide policy of immersion on demand where numbers warranted it.  Of course, New Brunswick has recently been in the midst of major turmoil as it overhauls its French immersion offerings.

Alas, the problem of French immersion is not a simple nut to crack.  While many boards will use program costs as an excuse for not creating programs - an issue well debunked by the Globe editorial, which refers to the federal Official Languages in Education program funding - there are some real, structural problems which require long-term thinking and serious structural adjustments.  I would argue that these require province-wide policy directions, rather than ad hoc solutions at the board level.

Take for example, the issue of teachers.  Although the Globe editorialist notes that there is currently a surplus of French teachers in the province of Ontario, that is not the same thing as having a surplus of teachers who would be competent to teach French immersion - which requires a much higher level of oral fluency and mastery - as opposed to teaching core French as a school subject.  Teacher shortages have been a problem for decades with the French immersion programs.  Most parents ideally want a fluent francophone teacher, and in many jurisdictions, the available teachers who meet that criterion are currently teaching in the French-language schools targeted at the francophone minority.  Importing teachers as a strategy used in many provinces, but many Quebec francophone teachers have no desire to teach French immersion in Oakville or Calgary or Nanaimo. 

Then there is the question of teacher redundancy.  A jump in immersion enrolments from 10 to 25% of the grade 1 population over a decade cannot simply be accommodated by hiring more teachers.  There is a question of what to do with the English-language grade 1 teachers in the board who are no longer needed to teach in the English stream.  That is a major staffing challenge that requires long term thinking - and a compassionate approach to the existing teachers.

That is just the tip of the iceberg with this long-standing challenge of implementing French language instruction in Canada.  Solving it requires long-term strategy, a deliberate and well-thought-out set of provincial policies, and effective communication of educational policy objectives to the public.  I agree with the main thrusts of the Globe's editorial - access to quality language education should not be a matter of luck of the draw - but solving this problem requires long-term vision, teacher training and recruitment, and creative thinking about how to deal with the displacements created by new educational priorities and parental preferences.

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Mon pays, ce n'est pas Vancouver!

I had to shake my head in amused bewilderment in reading Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong's whining in his memoirs about how the issue of French in the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies was criticized by people like Graham Fraser and James Moore, excerpted in this morning's Globe and Mail. He seems to be very put upon, stung by criticisms of people he thought were his political allies. I posted my own thoughts on this issue last year.

But the thing that I found really amusing, in a shake-your-head kind of way, is Furlong's defence of the relative absence of French in the ceremony, which was that the original plan for the opening ceremonies, designed by David Atkins, was to have a major component oriented around Gilles Vigneault's song "Mon Pays", only to have Vigneault refuse them the rights.

The fact that Atkins and Furlong were surprised by this just goes to show how completely out of touch they are with the province of Quebec and Canadian history. I freely acknowledge that the lyrics for the song, on their face, are great for a Canadian Olympics, since they roughly translate as "My country, it is not a country, it is winter." But the song is a long-standing nationalist hymn for the sovereignty movement, and Vigneault himself is a high-profile separatist. After the 1980 referendum went down to defeat, it was "Mon Pays" that the disappointed crowd of "Oui" supporters sang. And so it shouldn't have been any surprise that he wouldn't allow it to be sung in a ceremony celebrating a united Canada including Quebec. Indeed, it's amazing that the organizers designed as much of a program around it as they did without asking his permission first. Whatever else one might think about how Furlong felt about how he was treated for his under-use of French, the fact that this is his line of defence indicates, at least to me, just how out of touch he was with the highly political issue of language.

ETA: Correction: As one of the commenters pointed out, it was "Gens du Pays", not "Mon Pays", that was sung on the night of the referendum - a quick check of Daniel Poliquin's biography of Levesque confirmed this. But it was still Vigneault, and "Mon Pays" also holds an anthemic status in the province.

The melody for "Mon Pays," for those who like Canadian trivia, was reworked into the 1970s disco hit "From New York to L.A." by Acadian chanteuse Patsy Gallant, who appeared many times as part of Ottawa's Canada Day events.

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A course in Chiac

The language policy geek in me is very excited this morning. Apparently the immigrant welcoming centre in Moncton, New Brunswick is going to be offering courses in Chiac, the Acadian dialect of French.

If you scroll through the comments page on the CBC story that I've linked to, you'll find all the anticipated denunciations of Chiac as bastardized, lazy French. I'm not a linguist though, I'm a historian. And my initial take on this is that this course could be really beneficial to new immigrants to francophone New Brunswick. I wouldn't recommend it as the only French course that they take - a course in "standard" French will be needed, and likely one in English too, if they want to maximize their opportunities. But to get a grasp on Acadian culture, theatre and literature, a knowledge of Chiac would be very useful - just as getting the basics of Joual helps in Quebec.

A common complaint that I heard at a forum on official languages policy in Toronto was that new immigrants were not welcomed and/or viewed with suspicion or hostility by the multi-generational French Canadians. This type of course will help with the integration process, if it's well done.

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On a very loosely-connected note, I'm really looking forward to seeing French Immersion, the new comedy from the producers of "Bon Cop, Bad Cop", when it comes out. Our language issues in this country have caused severe tensions, but they're also great comic fodder, and it's always nice to see Canadians able to laugh at ourselves.

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New Brunswick Sign Laws

In my various publications, I've often taken a fairly strong stance against some provisions of Quebec's language laws, particularly early versions of the Charter of the French Language which prohibited signs in languages other than French. So the announcement of a proposed new bylaw in Dieppe, the francophone suburb/co-city of Moncton, New Brunswick which would mandate that all new signs must be either bilingual or in French, is intriguing to me.

I haven't viewed the proposed wording of the new sign bylaw, and I'll be curious to see if there is any language about how prominent French must be on bilingual signs. However, my initial reaction to the bylaw is a positive one. I've never had any major difficulty with language laws that are additive - requiring that another language co-exist or be promoted. Where I object is when these laws cross over into prohibition - denying any right to use another language. The bilingual compromise being proposed by Dieppe seems to meet the bill. Essentially, the bylaw appears to require some inclusion of French on commercial signs, leaving it up to individuals to decide if they also want to include another language. For a community which has essentially become the urban centre of the Acadian community, this seems to fall in the category of positive measures to encourage the use of French, without denying the rights of other language communities to express themselves in their own language.

Of course, I'm sure that there will soon be outbursts of complaints about what the translation costs involved are going to be. I think these will be overstated. And in light of Moncton's shameful historic treatment of its Acadian community (see: Leonard Jones), some encouraging measures are needed.

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Pauline Marois talks sense, is attacked by rabid unilinguals

I am rather pleased to note that even Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois is coming around to the realization that children have more opportunities in life if they are bilingual. I'm not surprised that she would be quickly attacked for her statements, but it does seem to indicate that those who viewed her as a more moderate, pragmatic politician were correct.

Now if only it were possible to convince more English-speaking Canadians that it can be useful (if not essential) to speak and read a second or third language...

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