Novocastrian

I tend to agree. I did O-level French and one year of German in school. I now speak and read both languages fairly adequately, but this has had nothing to do with school.

ETA: I think O-level Latin did more good for my overall development than either of the above subjects. For example it made learning to use and write computer code much easier to manage.

rivingtonpike

I'm sort of the same. My mother lives in France and music took me there quite a lot back in the day, plus learning French at school, I would like to think have made me competent; but it could just have easily been German or Spanish. Getting my head around quadratic equations, periodic tables, Shakespeare and Swift was hard enough in English. To have confronted all this in French? Just too much!

Novocastrian

Ah, but how do you fancy studying Racine, Rabelais or Molieres in English? Or Goethe for that matter.

Notwithstanding my previous post, I don't think language of instruction (as opposed to educational philosophy) has a great deal to do with quadratic equations and the periodic table.

Shirtback

Latin (to - groan - A level) has probably been the most useful subject I studied at school throughout my adult life. It helped a lot with maths

scrubbedexpat091

And even less of a reason to learn French in BC, if you don't feel those languages are of value, French is of even less value in this part of Canada.

Only benefit is for those who desire to pursue a career with the feds, but even then it's not necessary here as most don't speak French at any level in BC.




I would have never passed school at all if I was shoved into a foreign language environment....lol... Barely mastered English sufficiently.

rivingtonpike

I suppose my point is that these subjects are hard enough to grasp, without having to do so in what for most West Coast Canadians would be a second language

dbd33

Well, no, people have a right to deal with the Feds in French and so the Feds need people who speak the language, it's not the case that the Feds choose the language with which to deal with individuals.

scrubbedexpat091

Not all federal offices however have in person French service..

Just using Service Canada, of the 57 BC offices, only 10 offer in person French service.

The rest are English with phone interpretation available that goes to a call center somewhere (probably back east?)

Service Canada offices in British Columbia

dbd33

You don't speak the language so you don't notice the culture. That daughter worked in French in shops and whatnot in Vancouver (also in Halifax and Montreal) through university; obviously she dealt with customers who wanted to hear French.

I suggest that French, if not strictly necessary for a job with the Feds, is, at least, extremely desirable since, given two equal candidates, they'll take the bilingual one. There are a lot of willing candidates so a unilingual candidate would need to be amazing in some other way.

dbd33

I'm not sure what's being argued here; that the Federal government hiring policy doesn't favour bilingual candidates, that speaking a second language isn't a good thing or that francophones are poorly served in BC.

In short, it does, it is, and it doesn't matter. If the chance is there for children to learn French through immersion, it's a good idea on its own merits and has ancillary benefits in terms of employment.

scrubbedexpat091

Better to learn a more useful language in my view, if one desires to know another language, as most will not be going to cushy federal jobs, the benefit to French seems rather small considering how it's not widely used or spoken in BC, but other languages are and would be more useful if one desires to stay in this region.

I rarely see jobs asking for French, but I do see many asking for a variety of Asian languages as listed earlier, those are the languages companies that do business in BC especially in Vancouver/Lower Mainland seek.

I am more of the mindset if your going to spend time and effort and have the ability to learn another language (not everyone does) may as well learn one that will be of benefit for the region one lives and works in.

rivingtonpike

I don't think anyone is saying speaking a second language isn't a good thing. Personally though, my view is that having potentially your entire school career taught in a language that isn't your first language (as is invariably the case on the West Coast) is not what I would choose for my own kids.

dbd33

Well, which one? There's no commercial point in learning an Asian language for use in Canada because there will always be Asian immigrants who speak it better and know English as well. There's no social point because, even if you speak, say, Japanese, you're not culturally Japanese and you're no farther ahead with most Asians than you were speaking only English.

There's a good case for Spanish, being the second language of the continent, but, so long as you want a European language, you may as well take advantage of the government initiatives and learn French.

Bear in mind that it's a child who's being educated, we can only guess what language that child will want later on; I'd never have guessed I'd have a child who lives in Italian. Parents can only aim to keep as many doors open for children for as long as possible, we can't plan which ones they'll go through. It seems to me that speaking French opens some, not speaking French does not.

dbd33

I think it's interesting that, although my children went to French language schools until the end of high school, they, and most of their contemporaries chose English language universities. That's partly because it's expensive to go to a university in France, especially compared to going to one in the US with scholarship money, and partly because there are more English language colleges visible from Toronto, but it suggests that a francophone education isn't seen as a barrier to continuing education in English.

I concede that the case of children who are bilingual from the point of first speaking is different to that of children who speak only English and are then expected to attend school in another language.

dbd33

Again, which Asian language? I acknowledge that speaking tagalog would simplify interviewing nannies but which language would be of immediate commercial value? In which Asian language could a European child educated in BC compete successfully against children to whom the language is native who were educated in English in BC?