The Legault government passed Bill 96 on the French language on Tuesday. This update of the Charter of the French language provides that all public services be provided in French, with some exceptions, to the entire population, including immigrants or refugees after a six-month period.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
“Clearly, six months is not enough. Not a year either,” says Professor Suzie Beaulieu, specialist in teaching French as a second language in the Department of Languages, Linguistics and Translation at Université Laval.
“Even in the best possible circumstances, that is in the case of a young person, who speaks several languages, who spends almost all day practicing French and who already speaks a language close to French like Spanish, it is quite unrealistic to have a high level of French in six months,” says Richard Compton, professor in the linguistics department at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Under optimal conditions, learners usually express themselves using simple sentences after half a year of learning, says Phaedra Royle, professor at the School of Speech Therapy and Audiology at the University of Montreal.
You can learn to order a beer or ask for the bathroom, but you can’t talk about philosophy or health.
Phaedra Royle, professor at the School of Speech Therapy and Audiology at the University of Montreal
Children who arrive in Quebec and who are in full immersion at school master French at a high level in two or three years, indicates Ms.me Royle.
Conditions far from optimal
However, the conditions for learning French among immigrants or refugees are rarely ideal. “When you arrive in a new country, you have to adapt to your host environment and you may have experienced traumatic situations, so you may not have the mental space to learn in optimal conditions. “says M.me Beaulieu.
Moreover, the learning conditions vary greatly between a refugee and an immigrant who has made the informed choice to come to Quebec, she says. “If you quickly left your country at war, learning French becomes secondary. These people need to regain mental peace, and then they will be able to invest in learning the language,” says Ms.me Beaulieu.
The traumatic events that newcomers have experienced will also affect their learning, Compton adds. “It has an impact on attention, memory,” he says. Their level of education also comes into play. “There are people who have to learn a language in addition to not going to school, which is a double challenge,” adds Diane Huot, professor in the department of languages, linguistics and translation at Université Laval.
” It worries me ”
Experts find this new measure worrying. “I find it worrying as a policy. It’s not helping people to force them in six months to change the language,” says M.me Royle.
It’s a very short time [six mois].
Phaedra Royle, professor at the School of Speech Therapy and Audiology at the University of Montreal
The Bill 96 measure requires immigrants to receive public services in French six months after their arrival. Québec solidaire had first proposed an amendment to the bill to reduce the time limit from six months to two years. His proposal was rejected.
” It worries me. You have to keep an eye on that. If this measure causes people to stop going to the services they need, that’s an issue to think about,” says Ms.me Beaulieu.
For his part, Mr. Compton fears that the most vulnerable immigrant populations will be the most affected by this measure, in particular people with little or no education in their mother tongue or older people.