The Gestapo, angryphones and the real world

The linguistic debate has started again for a round. And as always, there is no room for nuance.

Posted at 5:00 a.m.

On the one hand, a sinister language Gestapo threatens to exterminate the province’s English-speaking minority. On the other hand, this spoiled rotten false minority would royally despise French speakers and dream of only one thing: their final drowning in a thick English sauce.

Demonstrators accuse Quebec of racism, spokespersons compare the province to a potential dictatorship. The dehumanizing comments for the Anglos are multiplying – as if they were the only minority on which one could still type without embarrassment.

On one side or the other, we dramatize and we overplay in this very bad remake of the two angry solitudes. The delusion of persecution strikes equally on both sides.

Let’s stop for a moment. Let’s take a deep breath. And ask ourselves if what we are seeing, what we have been hearing for weeks, this dangerous verbal bloat, really reflects what is happening on the ground.

You just have to dig a little to discover a less furious, less Manichean world, but also a lot more complex.

The real world, what.

Take Bill 96, which intends to impose three courts of French to students (or in French to allophone and francophone students) of English CEGEPs.

Three French lessons, it’s still not the sea to drink, we hear everywhere. What are they complaining about, these spoiled children? If that’s what it takes to preserve French in America, why not?

The problem is that everyone does not know if this is the right thing.

Strengthening French in Quebec is a more than laudable objective; it is absolutely essential. But are we going about it the right way?

What evidence is there that these three hastily imposed courses, without consultation, would have any positive impact? Not the least.

This is not me saying it. That’s not a angryphone privileged person who takes himself for a martyr.

They are two French as a second language teachers, Alexandre Limoges and Geneviève Caron. Two Quebecers who promote the language and pass it on to their English-speaking students. It’s their job, their passion.

And yet, they both feel like they are watching, helpless, a car accident in slow motion. Badly put together, the government’s plan, they warn, is doomed to failure. They don’t feel like they’re being heard. So there you go, I give them the floor.

Bill 96 was drafted without consultation, deplores Alexandre Limoges, professor at Cégep John-Abbott, in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. “We can’t come up with the right solutions if we haven’t taken the trouble to consult the people in the community and if we haven’t made sure to fully understand the reality of the students. »

“I am a French teacher, I will never say no to more French, but… not like that, adds his colleague, Geneviève Caron. Really, I find that the approach is not the right one. We have the impression that it’s a little improvised, all that. »

One example among many: the three courtyards in French suddenly turned into lessons of French for English speakers. However, two French courses are already compulsory in English-speaking CEGEPs. So that will make five to cram… in four sessions. “Right there, there is a lack of knowledge of the college network,” emphasizes Geneviève Caron.

Beyond the logistical issue, she doubts that these three imposed courses will achieve their objectives. “It’s very complex. There are motivational and anxiety issues associated with the second language that are well documented. We’re not talking about all that right now. We ignore these issues. »

“You have to work upstream rather than downstream,” explains Alexandre Limoges. Right from the start, you have to build bridges, make the children want to learn the language. This is where we can achieve something. If the measures we choose to impose is to place blocks like that, downstream, there will be a panic reaction. »

It is work that is done over years, equipping students so that they are ready to integrate a living environment.

Alexandre Limoges, professor at Cégep John-Abbott

He insists: “It’s not with hammer blows that we’re going to achieve anything with a situation as complex as this. The more we go [cliver] the debate, the less we will achieve our goals. »

And our goals, he reminds us, are to improve English-speaking students’ mastery of French. “We are teachers of French as a second language. This is close to our hearts. You just have to make sure you do it the right way. »

Indigenous students should be exempt

Perhaps you are still wondering: three small additional French courses at CEGEP, what harm can that do? Almost nothing, at first sight. And too bad if that upsets a few Anglos; it is the survival of French in America that is in question, after all.

But the consequences are likely to be serious for Mohawk students, among others, who are not exposed to French until Secondary IV.

For them, the language barrier will be insurmountable, warns Kim Martin, Mohawk from Kahnawake and nursing teacher at John Abbott CEGEP. “Students will have to go to other provinces for their studies. We are the first occupants and it is our children who will have to leave to have a better life…”

This would be a cruel irony, underlined the representatives of the First Nations gathered at the National Assembly on Tuesday. They demand that Indigenous students be exempted from the law.

Kim Martin recalls that the Mohawks did not choose to speak English; the colonial language was imposed on them. Already they seek to preserve their own language, fragile, they do not want to impose another.

It seems to me that Quebecers, among all, should be able to understand – and accept – that.


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