Machjo said:
Said1 said:
Alright, I take that back. Maybe it is a little assimilationist. What I don't get, though, is why would the Quebec government want to create a threat to the French language in the first place (i.e., make it mandatory for all students in Quebec to learn English as their second language, with no other alternative) and then try to protect the French language (i.e., Bill 101) from a threat created by the Quebec government itself. Would it not make more sense to give students, let's say, four or so language options to choose from, so that not all of them need to learn English if they don't want to? That way the threat to the English language would drop at least a little. Granted, most would probably still choose English, but at least the law wouldn't be so contradictory. Let's say, for instance, that, besides English, students could also choose between Esperanto (an easy langauge for the lazy students, those who just don't really see any point in putting too much effort in learning a second language, or those who are not so lazy but just interested, curious, or agree with the philosophy behind Esperanto), Arabic (for the 100,000+ Muslim students in Quebec, most of whom live in Montreal), and Persian (for the large Persian community in Montreal). That would mean that fewer students would be learning English, thus reducing the need for English teachers, thus reducing the need for professors of English in universities to teach English teachers, thus resulting in an overall reduction of jobs requiring English language skills, thus resulting in a reduced threat to the French language in Qebec, thus resulting in the potential for reducing the strength of Bill 101 in the future, or if not that, then at least ensure that they won't need to strengthen it in future. Your thoughts on that one?
it's off topic but i want to try an explanation. quebec have two official language. english and french. you can go in almost every buisness you want and you can get services in both language. Second, english is important too. we are surrounded by english. someone that cant speak english cannot go far in north america... and people can latter learn a third language. in high school you have that option. i've learn deutch in cegep for exemple.
and maybe that your solution indeed create less demand for english teacher, but every school will need 20 different langage teacher ?
You're right, it's off topic, so after this responce, I'll create a separate thread for it. As for every school needing 20 teachers, that's not true. It would just mean that the school principal would have the option of choosing what second language his school would teach, according to the students' interest. So the number of second language teachers in each school would remain the same. Only the language spoken might vary from school to school. And as for Quebec giving English all kinds of sepcial privileges and then restricting it just seems contradictory. At least this solution would naturally make French the only common language in the province, and thus naturally reduce the threat to English, thus not needing to rely on artificial controls such as bill 101 quite as much. I acknowledge that the power of English is so great that most students would probably still choose Enlgish, and so some artificial control such as bill 101 would still be needed to some extent, but perhaps the force of the Bill wouldn't need to be so great anymore. This would therefore give more freedom tothe Quebecois in terms of what language they could choose to learn, and also to the anglophones in perhaps ensuring that Quebec won't need to strengthen Bill 101 at any time inthe future.
Now as for English being crucial in Quebec, from my experience having lived in Montreal, La Malbaie-Pointe-au-Pic, Roberval, and Gatineau, along with my visits to Quebec City, Tadoussac, and otherparts of Charlevoix, I can say that English is not necessarily useful for everyone. I'd even met a native English speaker in Charlevoix whose English was dropping because she had no use for it in her daily life as a medical professional in a homogenously monolingual community. In Montreal, on the other hand, English seemed to be crucial for maybe not everyone, but certainly a large proportion of the population there. So I do believe that giving students language options in school could allow them to build relatins with other cvountries outside just North America (which could be of benefit to Quebec both culturally and economically), while at the same time eliminating an artificial cause of the threat of english to the French language in Quebec. So instead of forcing English on the people while at the same time restricting their use of it, would it not make more sense to give them the choice of what language to learn and then give English speakers a little more freedom (considering that they'd then naturally need French anyway, sinse not all French speakers would know English!
Just my thoughts, though.
