When announcing your seven priorities this week, Minister of Education, you remained evasive on how to halt the decline of written French. In this letter, I would like to capture the comment of the solidarity deputy Ruba Ghazal according to which French must be valued from childhood in school and developed from the point of view of a graduate with a master’s degree in sociolinguistics from Laval University and a full-time high school French teacher in 2021-2022.
First of all, let me debunk two persistent myths. On the one hand, if errors in French can harm professional advancement, they certainly cannot be accused of weakening the French fact in Quebec. This is a terrible illusion! On the contrary, it is the tireless stigmatization of errors that must be singled out.
Indeed, any language crumbles when people feel that it does not allow them to flourish. However, what better way to demoralize someone than to harp on that he is not good, that he does not master the language, that it is difficult? The young people of today are the parents of tomorrow. They will choose to speak and write in French, to work in French, to travel in French with their children, to mix with other French speakers… For them to find this language attractive, they must understand that it paves the path to success.
On the other hand, the French language is much broader than standard French. When will we finally manage to extricate ourselves from the narrow vision of the Chartrands of this world and consider French for what it is, that is to say a social phenomenon? The standard French learned at school should be presented as one more string to the students’ bow, not replace the linguistic resources that they already use in their daily lives. May students become budding linguists skilled in navigating between several varieties of French!
With that in mind, I am in turn listing seven concrete avenues to include in your action plan.
First, like the progressive diversification of the school population, highlight the constitutive heterogeneity of French, by promoting living French-speaking communities, as there are in Congo or Tunisia.
Then, young people must grasp their power of action over French. They must exercise the same influence over French that they exercise over the clothes they wear. Encourage members of the teaching staff to register their class for the next lexical creativity competition of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).
Third, listen to the sociolinguistic research community. Some of the points on this list were also proposed by Wim Remysen, full professor at the University of Sherbrooke.
Fourth, build standard French learning on the students’ linguistic background. Young people are already bringing the language to life without realizing it, in particular by posting on social networks and writing to each other.
In reaction to point four, many will retort that young people do not write only in French. They are right: English dominates on social networks. That said, the problem must be dealt with upstream. Promote French in all spheres, emphasizing the possibilities of economic and social success in French. Law 96 is a step in the right direction. What shimmers on public display the possibility of succeeding in French.
Sixth, focus on new language learning opportunities. Support the exploitation of the Usito dictionary in all its richness, in particular by exploring thematic articles on a multitude of subjects.
Finally, seventhly, if you want to go to a more drastic measure, insist on the inclusion of a course in sociolinguistics in the course of the next generation of teachers at the university to instil in each and everyone a positive and malleable vision of the French.
At the same time, your ministry must review its strategic plan this year. Why not include objectives, targets and indicators related to the enhancement of French? This may be pushing a bit, but isn’t the uniform test the perfect opportunity to collect data on students’ perception of French each year?
Moreover, your action plan, Mr. Minister, will only be a sword in the water if it is not accompanied by a shock reform of the teaching program. The new program, which will have to be based on an ostensible valorization of French, will be that of a whole generation. A generation of children who will become parents and who will in turn instil a taste for French in their descendants. But until this prodigious undertaking has borne fruit, don’t be surprised if young people ignore your desire to protect French in Quebec.