Representatives from around sixty companies will compete at the end of March as part of the Paul Gérin-Lajoie Foundation’s Dictée de la Francophonie, an event which aims to stimulate the use of French in institutions Quebecois as much as elsewhere in Canada.
The event, which is in its third iteration, this year’s theme is vocabulary linked to artificial intelligence.
“We are working with HEC Montréal which has developed an educational tool for adults in business, which is available before the dictation, to prepare for the dictation of the 1er March,” explains Olivier Bertin-Mahieux, general director of the Paul Gérin-Lajoie Foundation.
The PGL Dictation of La Francophonie takes place in two stages. 1er March, participating institutions will bring together a team that will participate in a virtual panel on French in business, in addition to giving an initial dictation that will allow the company to determine a representative.
Then, the participants will go to the dictation final on March 22, which will take place at the HEC Montréal pavilion located in the city center of the metropolis, and where the dictation will be read by the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge. This date corresponds to the Quebec Day of the Canadian Francophonie.
The event aims to raise funds for the foundation, with companies being invited to make a donation, but also to encourage the staff of these companies to learn French vocabulary.
“If everyone in your office uses cloudand you want to use cloud, the chances of you saying cloud are low if everyone says cloud. But if collectively, around the table, you use the word cloud computing in a dictation, there is perhaps a chance that you will adopt this vocabulary,” illustrates Mr. Bertin-Mahieux.
“The idea is that people come together, use this vocabulary, understand the concepts, and adopt it as a group within their company,” he adds.
La Dictée PGL de la francophonie will bring together companies from Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. Canadian National (CN), IKEA, Crique du Soleil, EY and TMX Group are among the companies that will participate in the exercise. Officials from the New Brunswick government will also take part in the activity.
For Mr. Bertin-Mahieux, dictation also provides the opportunity to interact with French-speaking communities outside Quebec.
“Quietly, we try to expand and go beyond borders so that it is pleasant to speak with other communities, who sometimes have difficulty, in their province, having all the vocabulary that we can have in Quebec in French in certain industries,” he explains.
“It’s an exercise that brings people together, and that’s important,” he adds.
According to the general director of the foundation, interest in promoting French in business is growing. Last year, around thirty companies were registered for the Dictée PGL de la Francophonie, while the foundation expects around sixty companies to be present at the event this year.
“The movement is growing,” says Mr. Bertin-Mahieux.
Half of the funds raised as part of the dictation will be dedicated to projects carried out by the foundation in schools in disadvantaged areas, and the other half will be used to create educational activities linked to the PGL Dictation offered to children at primary school.