What a beautiful, limpid text by Catherine Paradis, professor at Cégep de Rimouski and responsible for the promotion of French. In her text “Les horrors of the past participle” published on November 22, she clearly exposes the current challenges of teaching the French language, beyond the debates of specialists on the agreement of past participles.
It reminded me of how, until CEGEP, I was a real dunce of the French language, aimless and without a future. So much so that I was unable to write without mistakes, to structure a sentence, a paragraph and a text to express my ideas, my feelings, not to mention the agreements with which I was constantly struggling! In CEGEP, I then registered during the summer for remedial courses, then, later, for other corrective French courses. And thanks to a few bright teachers, I literally fell in love with the language, the words, the ideas, the syntheses. It even allowed me to make a living from it and to give a voice to others as an information officer for a union organization! Thank you to all these teachers without whom I could not clearly express my pride, but especially all my gratitude towards them.
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