Official Languages Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, all three of you, for being here.

I'd like to touch on what Mr. Morrow was talking about, as well as Ms. Adams and Ms. Ellwand, on two areas. We were talking earlier about the drop-out rate between grade 9 and grade 12. You were talking about the fact that there isn't enough happening in the post-secondary level. For me, I'm hearing that if people are dropping out between grade 9 and grade 12, who is going to go into the post-secondary?

The question I have is how do we encourage students to stay in the immersion program, to follow it through? How do we create an environment that's less of an academic point scoring and create an environment that's more a part of life?

I have a quick story. When I came here from England I spoke a little French because we had to speak French. I went to Kensington Elementary School in NDG in Montreal. We had our French classes; this is grade 5. If we were really good in French at that level you got to go to Mr. Levy's class. Mr. Levy's class was basically everybody sitting around reading Lucky Luke, the cowboy, and Asterix stories. The only rule was we were not allowed to speak a word in English, not a word. If you did, you went back to the regular French class—je m'appelle, tu t'appelles, and so on. Even if we had to translate, we had to put our hand up and ask how to translate something. I remember that class because it was such a goal to be there.

Does that tie into what you're talking about—that's a third question—as well as taking the French out of the classroom and making it a part of people's lives? How can we do that?

[Justin Morrow]

We'll let Calina go first this time.

[Calina Ellwand]

Thank you.

I remember an opportunity that I had when I was 16. It was through the summer work student exchange program, which is a federal government program. I'm not sure if it still exists; I know that its funding was on the line. When I was 16, it allowed me to go to a very small community in New Brunswick for six weeks and work in a summer camp. It was a community that was entirely French speaking. I did not know until that point that communities like that existed in Canada.

Having that six-week opportunity where they took me out of my comfort zone, out of my downtown Toronto life, my anglophone life, and threw me into a minority community, a French community, really changed my perspective on where French was used and how French was used in Canada, and how French could benefit me in the future. I think more opportunities like that.... They did the reverse for my cohort. They took her out of her small village and brought her to Toronto. She was working on her English. More opportunities like this within Canada, where we're exchanging languages with other communities and seeing different realities, can really make an impression on someone at a young age.

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Calina Ellwand]

Jobs? Telling kids that they're going to get access to jobs, that they're going to get access to more employment opportunities.... When you're in grade 8, you're still a little too young to realize the full potential of this. That's a more powerful argument for grade 11 and grade 12 students.

There's my two cents.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

[Justin Morrow]

Also, one of the major problems we have to face is that students who drop out of French, or students who don't become bilingual by grade 12, don't think that they will ever again have the chance to become bilingual. For most 19- and 20-year-olds, a lot of them that I talk to say, “I wish I would have learned French. I wish I would have...”. Post-secondary, they're all looking back and saying that they wish they would have done it. They all think it's too late, but it's never too late to learn a second language. You can always do it. They just have to know that the possibility is there, that it exists, and that there are opportunities to do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay.

Madam Adams, go ahead.

[Dr. Jennifer Adams]

I'm conscious of the fact that you're into a federal jurisdiction and a provincial jurisdiction. We've talked a little bit about the kinds of things.... Getting better instruction is really what's going to make a difference. We have 72,000 students. I love what Calina is saying about the different activities. We're never going to have enough dollars to send all 72,000 of them on exchange, but I do think that an important piece of it is to have some of those possibilities available, and certainly at the post-secondary level as well.

How do we influence what that instruction looks like? The experience you had, that shouldn't just be for the students who are highly academic: it should be for every student.

That's the nature of the instruction that's going on. Ontario has made a very important policy decision. Up until now, immersion courses in secondary school were available only for what is called the academic stream. In the applied stream, immersion courses didn't exist. Ontario made a very important policy decision, such that now there are applied level immersion courses. Those are the students who are going out to the workplace. Those are the students who we need to be engaging in those kinds of programs.

Getting back to where the federal government comes in, it's the responsibility of the provinces and the school districts to make sure this good instruction is happening. The federal government plays a role in setting the stage for how that will happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lunney, do you have a question?

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

The floor is yours.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In my opinion, languages can be used as bridges or as walls. I think that we need many more bridges between peoples to maintain the objective of speaking both official languages in Canada. This concerns students, but all of us as well. It is very important, even when we do not speak perfectly. In my opinion, pursuing this objective is very valid.

In my riding of Nanaimo-Alberni, there is an organization called the Association des francophones de Nanaimo. Every year, they hold a maple sugar festival. For the past few years, there have been exchanges between businessmen and women in my riding and businessmen and women in Quebec, where the maple products are made. Francophone schools and students in the immersion programs have the opportunity to experience the joy of life linked to francophone culture, songs and maple products.

That is why I am asking you a simple question. Do you believe that for regions at a great distance from Ottawa, this type of program can significantly contribute to attaining the committee's objective, that is maintaining the use of both official languages?

[Dr. Jennifer Adams]

In my opinion, it is important. It encourages children and adults to continue with language learning. It is certainly useful.

Under the agreement reached between the federal government and the province of Ontario, when we receive funding, certain amounts are earmarked especially for cultural activities. It's exactly as you described. It is offered to schools to ensure that children are steeped in the francophone culture of Quebec, Canada and elsewhere in the world. It certainly is important.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I would like—

It's just a simple comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Do you have some questions as well?

If it's a short question, go ahead, Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I was simply going to say this.

I grew up in Manitoba. Between grade 7 and grade 11, most students did not have enough opportunities to practise their French. However, to learn

the grammar, the basics, it was at least a foundation that you could try to build a bridge.

Throughout my career, even though I have lived in anglo communities, whenever I hear a French accent, I try to practise my six words en français.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Lunney.

Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I would like to put a question to Dr. Adams.

How many schools administer a French test in grade 12?

Are there a lot of school boards in Ontario that use that test? You've talked about the value of it. Is that something that is spreading?

[Dr. Jennifer Adams]

It's very new. We are the first English school district in Ontario to pilot that.

It is used in some locations in Alberta, as well as in B.C., and in the Atlantic provinces as well. Those provinces are quite connected to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and the DELF, which is actually the evaluation, is a piece of that.

The work we're doing in the province of Ontario, the piece I said our board is the lead board for all of the other school districts, is using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which means that the concept of those levels of performance is embedded into our instruction in the classroom, but not necessarily with an official exit test at the end of it.

It's really not necessary to have it, actually. Those common levels of proficiency can be used right in the daily evaluations that teachers are using, but the development of a common language of what we mean by proficient is spreading throughout the province of Ontario.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

As a quick follow-up, since you've been piloting that test, has your board been able to use the results from the test to perhaps address the second point Ms. Ellwand made, which was inconsistencies in quality?

Are you able to use those metrics even within the number of schools you discussed? Do you see that as a benefit of the test?

[Dr. Jennifer Adams]

I want to be very careful with the concept of a test because what I'm really recommending to the committee is not the actual adoption of a test but the adoption of a framework for proficiency levels. Whether or not a test takes place, it is very important that that stays at the district level and the provincial level.

Have we used that information? Absolutely. What we found is, for example, and I touched on it before, that the whole concept of interaction in French was an area that we weren't doing enough of. Our students, when we looked at how they were performing on the different spoken, written, etc., it was that interacting piece that our students were struggling with most.

As a result, we have a model of instructional coaches that go out and work with our teachers in our district in all areas, K to 12, and our focus over the last couple of years has been really pushing toward more of that interactive piece. The great thing about it is that's what the kids want to be doing, so it is not just helping our outcomes; it is actually engaging the students in their learning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay, thank you.

So, to close, I turn the floor over to Ms. Boutin-Sweet.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to come back to immersion and the core program. I am a francophone and my husband is an anglophone. We have two sons, and since their birth, we speak to them both in French and English equally. They thus learned to speak a little bit later, given the fact that they were learning two languages, but when they did begin to speak, they expressed themselves in both languages. That went downhill a bit when they started school.

Earlier, when you answered Mr. Gourde's questions, you talked about statistics and the parents of children who are not francophone, which is not my case, because I am a francophone and their father is an anglophone.

Don't talk to me about statistics here, but if you had been the principal of the school where I sent my children, which program would you have suggested to ensure that my children could continue to be just as bilingual as they were before they started school?

[Dr. Jennifer Adams]

That is a big question. Even if I was the director general of the French-language school board, I would have the same challenge. The different managers talk about this.

Obviously, it is very difficult to motivate the children to continue speaking French outside the classroom. In a community like Ottawa, I think that in general, English is the first language spoken, and that is why it is chosen as the basic language. What we try to do in our programs is to ensure that this continues in the classroom. Where possible, we try to encourage the students to continue their classes and to participate in other activities outside the classroom in the hopes that they will grow up in both languages.