Toronto, April 1st, 2005
Notes for a speech to the Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association
Dr. Dyane Adam - Commissioner of Official Languages
Check against delivery
Thank you for inviting me!
It is always a pleasure to speak before an audience that shares the same goals and the same conviction that learning new languages brings all kinds of benefits. As Canadians, as people with two linguistic heritages, we know very well that, as your theme says, language is a way to embrace the world.
Before I begin, I’d like to introduce myself to you. Sometimes, the media call me the “language czar,” but as you can see, I wear no crown. And sometimes I am called the language cop, but I don’t have a badge, either. What I am, in fact, is an agent of change. An act of Parliament has given me the responsibility of helping the government comply with the law and serve both official language groups equally.
My authority rests on my office’s capacity to influence administrators, decision-makers and legislator. To influence, my office does research, investigates situations, develops arguments and recommends change.
With that in mind, I would like to take a few minutes to tell you why I think bilingualism is so important, particularly within the context of your chosen theme. First, I’ll look at the importance of bilingualism for our young people. Then, I’ll explain the role that educators can play in promoting second-language education. And finally, I’ll talk about some of the contributions language teachers have made.
1. The Importance of Bilingualism for Students
Research has shown the intellectual advantages of learning another language. Students who learn another language show greater mental flexibility, better aptitude for abstract thought, better non-verbal skills and a greater facility for conceptualizing. Bilingual children are better able to solve problems and are more creative1.
More recently, Ellen Bialystok2, a psychologist at York University, even found that being bilingual helps keep you from losing your mental edge as you age. She said, "Being bilingual is like going to a brain gym."
It’s no wonder, then, that eight in ten English-speaking parents want their children to speak another language, and of those, three quarters want that language to be French3.
As far as I’m concerned, there are many reasons why Anglophone children should learn French. Bilingual Canadians can live and work anywhere in Canada. According to a November 2003 COMPAS survey4, half of Canadian business leaders agree that bilingual people can find work more easily.
Bilingual kids can also contribute to the linguistic and cultural diversity of our country. This will be more important as the fabric of the country changes. Approximately 80 percent of immigrants speak neither English nor French as a mother tongue. If the English and French communities are still “two solitudes,” we will risk having a country that is fractured along, not just two solitudes, but along many, many solitudes.
When you speak someone else’s language, you don’t just communicate with them. You get inside their skin. You come to understand how they think. And this makes you more sensitive to other cultures in general.
The ability of our two main linguistic groups to get along with and contribute to one another is an example that shows each wave of immigrants how they can share the best of what they bring with them, while adopting the best of what we have to offer.
In fact, surveys show that seven out of ten people born in Canada and three out of four immigrants agree that “having two official languages has made Canada a more welcoming place for immigrants from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds.5
When you think about it, the most dynamic cities are often the ones in which different linguistic traditions intersect and generate new ideas: whether that’s ancient Istanbul, medieval Timbuktu or today’s New York. You’re seeing that in Canada too, in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
In other words, bilingualism is a stepping stone to multiculturalism. In that COMPAS poll I mentioned, 47% of business leaders said that speaking another language leads to greater cultural sensitivity. I think they’re right.
If you know English and French, you not only have an advantage at home, but around the world. There are 56 members of the Francophonie. French is the mother tongue of more than 110 million people.
And unlike many of the other languages with more speakers, such as Bengali or Russian, there are countries all over the world with large French-speaking populations, from Haiti and Switzerland to Senegal and Tahiti.
In fact, 53 percent of Europeans speak at least one other language. In Europe, only English is adopted more often than French as a second language, and a fifth of non-Francophone Europeans say they know French.
In other words, bilingualism is a passport to the world economy, and in English and French, Canadians are uniquely blessed by having as official languages two of the world’s most important tongues.
2. The Role of Educators
Having established the importance of bilingualism for students, I’d now like to talk about the role that you can play as educators.
As you know, despite some considerable progress, we still have to work to offer quality language instruction in our schools. As the front-line troops, you are the ones fighting for courses, better textbooks and teaching aides, more technology, and an improved student/teacher ratio.
We want to help. In March 2003, the Government of Canada published its Action Plan for Official Languages, which set as its goal the doubling of the proportion of bilingual high school graduates by 2013. This ambitious objective not only advances linguistic duality; it also makes us more competitive internationally.
I believe that, with leadership and teamwork, we can achieve this goal. Don’t forget that, in 1977, there were only 38,000 children registered in French immersion. Since then, registrations in these programs have increased ten times over.
Today, one teenager in four speaks both official languages. Our children are twice as likely to be bilingual as we are. We can do even better!
How do we do this? In March 2004, we tried to answer some of these questions. In partnership with Canadian Parents for French and two federal departments, we organized a symposium to identify the vision and challenges for the new century.
We invited teachers and representatives from all key sectors of society—education, business, culture, sport and the public service, both federal and provincial—to discuss the issues and propose strategies that would lead young people to embrace linguistic duality and enrol in French courses.
Now we are moving on to the next steps. To that end, the federal Government’s Action Plan provides for $150 million in new funding over five years, which will be used for second official language training. But it’s not just about the money. It’s also about teamwork. We need all stakeholders working together.
And as part of this teamwork, we need accountability. We must ask our provincial and federal leaders to not only lead, but also to be accountable for their results. We must ask, not only for promises of progress, but also for benchmarks and goals. And we must ask, not just for activity, but also for results. What is happening to the money that provinces are investing in FSL programs? Is it getting the job done?
In our last report to Parliament, I recommended that the Minister for Canadian Heritage ask the provincial and territorial ministers of education to report every year on their progress toward Action Plan goals.
But this same sort of thinking also applies to the classroom. We need standards so that teachers and students can measure how well they’re doing, and this information in turn will help improve curricula, set realistic expectations and motivate students.
3. The Contributions That Educators Can Make
Educators also need to be at the avant-garde of language training. We need innovative ways to keep students interested in learning a language. That requires a fresh look at learning tools and pedagogical resources.
We should find a better balance of mandatory courses and intensive courses, as well as various types of immersion. We need to see French-language training as a process that begins with pre-school and extends past university.
As educators, you have an important role to play in developing Canada as a bilingual, multicultural country. Every day, your example shows how learning languages can enrich your life.
You may think that your efforts go unnoticed and unrecognized. But the reality is very different. I often meet young people who fondly remember the teachers who opened the doors of another world to them.
I believe that enthusiasm for learning languages can be contagious. I also believe that learning languages is about more than memorizing verbs; it’s about establishing a dialogue with our fellow Canadians.
As teachers, you make language come alive for your students, if they see it as a fun way to dip into a brand new culture and a brand new world.
Conclusion
Dr. André Obadia of Simon Fraser University once said,6 “The learning of a second language is in itself an excellent pursuit, not least because it develops an appreciation of the act of communicating with others, the subtleties that must be expressed in words, the importance of listening.”
In a world where, too often, communities act first and listen later, learning languages is an important way to tie us together and make us more aware of one another. And the more we learn about each other, the more we can contribute to each other’s communities.
We have come very far in 30 years, and educators were the catalysts for the advances we have seen in French immersion and FSL. What you already achieved as educators encourages me to believe that you can achieve even more. We must keep moving forward.
Thank you.
1 “The cognitive consequences of bilingualism”. Reynolds, A.G., A.G. Reynolds (Ed.), Bilingualism, multiculturalism and second language learning: The McGill conference in honour of Wallace E. Lambert (pp. 145-182). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
2 “Bilingualism – it’s good for your brain”, Ottawa Citizen, June 14, p. A1. Based on a study published in the June 2004 edition of Psychology in Aging: Bilingualism, Aging, and Cognitive Control: Evidence From the Simon Task.
3 CRIC, Bilingualism: Part of Our Past or Part of Our Future?, The CRIC Papers #13, March 2004.
4 Chamber Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll by COMPAS in the Financial Post, November 28, 2003.
5 CRIC, Bilingualism: Part of Our Past or Part of Our Future?, The CRIC Papers #13, March 2004.
6 “Enseignement des langues: le Canada joue un rôle de chef de file”. La Presse, September 20, 1996, page B3.
