Customers of businesses owned by immigrants have an important role to play in facilitating their francization, the President and CEO of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM) said on Tuesday. Michel Leblanc was speaking as part of Quebec’s $1.6 million grant for the program’s return I learn French.
Through this project, 360 small, well-established entrepreneurs are to be matched with university students. The latter accompany them to their place of work to teach them French in concrete situations of their daily life.
“The condition for success is that society be aware that these people are making an effort, and that they have to be supported,” declared Mr. Leblanc.
“Many bilingual customers, faced with a merchant who does not speak French well, will switch to English. It undoes what you want to do,” he continued.
Participating merchants will display a badge indicating that they are learning French. Consumers can help them by speaking more slowly, says Mr. Leblanc.
“This program is a complementary offer to the services of Francisation Québec, since it makes it possible to reach merchants who cannot be absent from their business to take advantage of the services of the ministry. This allows them to serve customers in French while avoiding reducing their productivity in their business,” explained the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette, during the announcement.
According to Mr. Leblanc, 396 merchants are already on the waiting list to participate in the program. Before being put on hold in 2020 due to the pandemic, the project created in 2016 enabled the pairing of nearly 750 entrepreneurs.
A human adventure
Nathanaël Pono is one of the former trainer students. He accompanied six professionals, including a hairdresser, a convenience store owner and an artist. The majority of them were very beginners in French and they progressed by one or two levels in more or less three months.
“It was to add vocabulary, to be able to name things, to formulate very simple sentences: say hello, name the price, say goodbye, that kind of thing”, detailed this CEGEP professor who appreciated the “human adventure” behind this experience.
According to the CCMM, 80% of former participants have improved their level of French. According to Minister Fréchette, the sustainability of this program will depend on several criteria, such as the number of matches made, the diversity of businesses and the real and measured progress of the participants. Traders are rated three times during the session.
The financial assistance announced will be used to pay student mentors, administer the program and set up a communications campaign to publicize it. It should start in September, estimates Mr. Leblanc.
The Minister recalled that this project is part of a “package of measures” aimed at advancing the use of the Quebec national language. Barely two weeks ago, Quebec launched Francisation Quebec, a one-stop shop bringing together all government francization services. More than $168 million was spent on francization services during the last fiscal year.