Xavier Xia
The Quebec government provides free French courses to recent immigrants or study/work permit holders as part of its Francization program. These courses aim to improve the students’ proficiency in French and their ability to integrate into the Quebec society (Amireault, 2011).
I have been taking one of these courses at the Chinese Family Service Centre of Greater Montreal since January. My classmates, age 16 to 55, come from many places in the world. They have different L1(s), education background, and have been living in Quebec for varying lengths of time. They also have different motivations for learning French: some plan to immigrate to Quebec permanently, while others might decide to move to another province or another country entirely. However, despite the diversity of the class, my teacher insists a “French-only” policy.
As we know, learning a new language is akin to learning a new identity. The “French-only” policy, which forbids students from using other languages, is very predominant. Even though French is the only target language in this context, this policy is highly problematic because it creates a learning environment that solely encourages students to build their Quebecois identity, often at the expense of their original identities.
Instead, I think the Francization program should take a plurilingual approach (Marshall & Moore, 2013), like encouraging students to use their L1(s) in class. In addition to facilitating French learning, a plurilingual approach would also make the course more inclusive and reflect the multicultural and multilingual reality of the province we live in. For instance, my class comprises students from China, Hong Kong, Iran, Australia, Chile, and Mexico. I would like to see my teacher encourage the students to help each other in their L1(s) instead of interrupting them, saying “Parlez en francais!”. Not only is it an excellent way for us to learn French and build Quebecois identity, but it also reinforces our original identities by speaking our L1(s) in the classroom. Nevertheless, I suppose teachers who were taught to use monolingual methods and had been teaching in this way could find difficulty adapting or even resist this new educational methodology. Furthermore, students who have learned other additional languages in a monolingual environment could also question the benefit of plurilingualism.
Question:
Do you agree that plurilingualism can promote inclusivity in Francization courses?
What other challenges face the adoption of plurilingualism in Francization courses?
References:
Amireault, V. (2011). Identity construct of adult immigrants learning French in Montreal. Canadian and International Education/Education canadienne et internationale, 40(2), 61–74.
Marshall, S., & Moore, D. (2013). 2B or not 2B plurilingual: Navigating languages literacies, and plurilingual competence in postsecondary education in Canada. TESOL Quarterly, 47, 472–499. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.111
Hello Xavier,
It’s great to hear that you are learning French! I also agree with Amireault that learning an additional language helps with integration. The use of the mother tongue in the classroom has long been a controversial topic in Second Language Acquisition. Just like you, I strongly believe that all students’ L1 language is an asset, not a barrier to learning a second one. Not only does it help in building a strong and positive teacher-student relationship, but it facilitates positive transfer. As we all know, there are many benefits in activating prior knowledge when learning a new concept. That said, the similarities between learners’ L1 and the target language can be used to improve learning. To answer your question, I agree that a plurilingual approach can promote inclusivity in Second Language classrooms. It takes account of students’ diverse background and helps with understanding.
Good luck in your studies!
Catherine Shieh
Hi Xavier!
I agree with you that plurilingualism approaches should be encouraged in Second language classrooms. Whilst there are many pros, such as creating a less stressful environment, sharing of culture, and comparing grammar/vocabulary, I have recently noticed some cons associated to it. This summer I taught immigrant students ESL and allowed them the use of their L1 in the classroom whilst encouraging them to pracise English as much as possible. This made all the South American students work together, all the Ukrainians work together, leaving one Brazilian student on her own. Because no one else spoke Portughese she was often isolated from the rest of the class.
Also, I noticed that the weaker students relied heavily on Spanish when talking to their fellow South American classmates. Even though I encouraged them to use English during activies, they argued that it was too hard. At the end of the semester, these weaker students had barely improved since the first week. Therefore, even though plurilingualism has many benefits, I think that allowing too much of L1 may make students rely upon it to the extent where they do not learn. Perhaps there could be periods allocated to speaking only in the target language and other periods for using L1 and L2!
-Marina Koutsis
Hello Xavier!
Hearing about your experience made me think a lot and made me also feel very frustrated. I know how difficult it can be for someone who is trying to learn a new language to be limited in the use of all the resources at their disposal. Traditional teachers that still believe in monolingual approaches often do not understand that the other language in our repertoire (and all the semantic resources we can rely on as well!) can only benefit our learning process. This is to say that I totally agree with you – plurilingualism should be implemented more in language classrooms, not only because it can facilitate the learning process of students, but also because it can bring cultural exchange among learners. Your post made me think of a metaphor that I like very much and that I want to share with you. When speakers rely on perform plurilingual practice and color their speech with different language, it is as if they are “using a twelve-string guitar, rather than limiting themselves to two six-string instruments”.(Valdés 1988) 🙂
– Martina B.