Official Languages committee  We take in two types of students. First we take in those who have studied French in high school and who would like to continue studying it. They have a number of careers in mind, including teaching or a career in politics, tourism or international relations. We also have beginne

Official Languages committee  I would say the same thing. In Nova Scotia, too, a lot of Acadian families are losing their French. In my classes, I regularly see students whose names seem Acadian to me, d'Entremont or Leblanc, for example. I realize they don't speak French. I find that unfortunate and they do

Official Languages committee  I would like to support this idea that it is important, of course, to have francophones who teach, but also qualified anglophones because they serve as models for our students. An anglophone student wants to know whether it's possible to achieve a certain level of proficiency an

Official Languages committee  I can talk about my department. We have all kinds of teachers who come from everywhere. We have two colleagues from Quebec, one from Belgium, one from Switzerland, one from Haiti and myself. I don't think my department is unique. You find that mix in most French departments acros

Official Languages committee  I think it would be a great idea to put in place a system of exchanges for teachers. I know at the university level we do have that possibility, if you can find someone who switches from their university to ours and then you can basically change houses and change jobs. It's quite

Official Languages committee  I completely agree. In fact, I think there are programs enabling students in the Explore program to stay at the same place and to work there. One of our students did that last summer. She found a job and worked in French.

Official Languages committee  Yes, exactly.

Official Languages committee  It depends. It's not guaranteed. We've also seen that our students who took the Explore program were the ones who wanted to do another language stay. A lot of students take part in a first and a second Explore program. Then, in third year, they go on exchange programs. I think th

Official Languages committee  The scholarship helps enormously.

Official Languages committee  The TCF? There are two parts. One is mandatory and concerns oral comprehension, mastery of language structure and written comprehension. That takes an hour and a half. Then there are two optional parts concerning oral and written expression. That lasts another two hours, I belie

Official Languages committee  Yes, anyone who wants to take him the TCF, the Test de connaissance du français. It makes it possible to rank a person from level A1, the basic level, to C2, the advanced superior level. In addition, the Nova Scotia Ministry of Education has a pilot project right now to enable s

Official Languages committee  I completely agree: nothing replaces a long-term language stay. You really have to be in a francophone environment where there are no anglophones with whom you're tempted to speak. When they return, we've noticed that our students who have spent a year in France have really made

Official Languages committee  I would say that the shortage of qualified teaching staff is a very serious problem. Often in the schools, no teachers have done any studies in French, but the principal, who needs to find someone to give the courses in that subject, looks among his staff for someone who has take

Official Languages committee  I'll start by thanking you for inviting us and affording us the opportunity to present our programs. I'll begin because I'm afraid my text is a little too long. Acadia University's Department of Languages and Literatures offers programs in French as a second language and courses