In the conference room of an industrial company in Lachine, in the west of Montreal, a dozen employees listen attentively to a lady who appears on the TV screen hung on the wall.
“Repeat after me: ‘Hello’”, says the woman on the TV screen.
“Bonnndjour”, chant the workers, in hesitant French.
These foreign-born employees are part of a little-known success story: the Center de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) has been offering in-company francization courses to hundreds of people for several years. Last year, more than 800 employees of some fifty companies in Montreal learned French at their workplace.
Businesses with less than 250 employees are eligible for a subsidy from Services Québec covering 100% of francization training costs as well as the reimbursement of participants’ salaries up to a maximum of $25 per hour.
“Our employees are really motivated to be paid to learn French. With all the nationalities we have here, what joins us is English. But we are in Quebec, the working language is French”, summarizes Alain Lavallée, financial controller at Textiles Dura, this company in the Lachine industrial park which hosted The dutya rainy morning in November, to attend francization classes.
That morning, two periods of two hours are devoted to French lessons at Dura. The CSSDM professor gives her course remotely.
In French please
About thirty employees, from all continents, work at Textiles Dura and its neighboring twin sister, Les Plastiques Dura. Most of these workers have taken francization courses. Participation is voluntary, but employees don’t have to be asked twice to learn the official language of Quebec.
“When I was offered French lessons, I said yes without hesitation: it will help me not only at my job, but in life in general,” says Earlene Pompey, a seamstress from Saint-Vincent. -and-the-Grenadines, in the West Indies.
This mother of three adult children speaks French but speaks mainly English. Her children are bilingual. They were educated in French because of Bill 101. Earlene Pompey wants to master French, even if we often hear English in the company.
As in many industries, the vocabulary of textiles and plastics is mainly in English: slitting, lining, coating, quilting… How do you say slitting in French ?
“Uh… slitting ! laughs Alain Lavallée. The French terms are imposed gradually, at the rate of francization courses: cutting, topstitching…
Halt the decline
The display is in French everywhere in the warehouse where large rolls of plastic and fabrics of all kinds are piled up to the ceiling. Employees, hailing from Ghana, Kazakhstan, Syria, India and a range of other countries, can communicate with each other in French thanks to their CSSDM lessons. Anglophones in Montreal are also taking advantage of it to learn French.
“We consider the tasks of each of the participants to teach them the vocabulary of their profession,” explains Fabrice Salomé, business francization consultant at the CSSDM. He himself taught francization.
“We are not going to hide it: the decline of French is a reality in Montreal. We provide a very concrete response to that by multiplying the opportunities to learn the language, to practice it in the workplace,” he adds.
The program is so popular that the CSSDM is preparing to hire additional francization teachers, explains Fabrice Salomé. Newcomers who are waiting for courses from the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration must also arm themselves with patience.
“Immigrants want to learn French. They put in incredible effort, they work hard and well. They are fantastic employees. I have so much respect for them. I find them courageous to have left everything to start a new life in another country,” says Alain Lavallée.
Essential workers
The very existence of the Dura company depends on the workforce coming from elsewhere. With the shortage of workers that has grown with the pandemic, companies that can do without employees of foreign origin are becoming extremely rare.
RIMAP Hospitality Services, which operates four hotels, soon to be five, make extensive use of CSSDM francization courses. For example, a quarter of the workers (24 out of a hundred) of the Holiday Inn hotel in downtown Montreal, boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest, take French lessons during their working hours.
“They are the ones asking for it. Their first need is to learn the language to open a bank account or to obtain a social insurance number,” explains Myla Tarasenko, director of human resources at RIMAP.
This Ukrainian of origin, who has lived in Quebec for twenty years, hired a series of refugees who fled the Russian offensive in her native country. Employees (mostly women) from the Philippines complete the cohort of workers and francization students at the Holiday Inn hotel.
“We are blessed to be able to count on these employees. They do difficult jobs, not very popular among workers of Quebec origin,” says François Bourcier, manager of this downtown hotel. These employees are room attendants, waitresses, cooks and dishwashers. Waiting to climb the ladder, once they are comfortable in French.
Start from scratch
In a meeting room on the second floor of the hotel, a dozen of these people follow the course of the teacher Michelle Laurin. They are so unfamiliar with French and English that the teacher has to teach them the alphabet — and the pronunciation of each letter. Some of these students have a university degree in their country of origin, but they have to start over as in the first year of primary school.
“A,” explains Michelle Laurin, writing the sound in the phonetic alphabet on her whiteboard. “The mother, the potato, the dish, the cat. »
The students, ultraconcentrated, try to rehearse. “A, mama, cha…”
“E. I, the, me, reject. »
“Eeeee…”
“French is a complex language, but I want to learn it,” says Karina Illarionova, a 24-year-old Ukrainian who arrived in Montreal in June. She speaks a mixture of French and Ukrainian.
His colleague Oleksandre Verstiuk, 18, continues in a mixture of English and Ukrainian. “I love the city. It’s nice to walk on Mount Royal. The metro and bus are efficient. People are respectful. You hear them say, “Excuse me, please, thank you.” »
The young man begins to have the ear to detect certain words. It encourages him for the future in his adopted country.