Re: Bilingualism has ruined Canada but there is still hope.
From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 12/15/04
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:43:32 GMT
Neeraj Mathur wrote:
> Under this system, one of the fourteen prescribed credits was French. This
> was usually done in the first year of high school, Grade Nine. After this,
> French became optional. French instruction was usually started in elementary
> school, although there was some flexibility as to when it started. The
> school board where I lived started French in Grade Four, that is, when the
> student was about nine years old. A school board where I used to live
> started French in Grade One, when the student was six years old. Still, the
> Grade Nine French course was at the same level across the province.
>
> It is not possible to consider oneself a Francophone having only completed
> Grade Nine French. At this point, the student really only knows three
> tenses: the present, the compound past with etre/avoir, and the 'near
> future' with aller. The knowledge of pronouns is limited, as relative
> pronouns and emphatic personal pronouns are not introduced until the next
> year or two. Essentially, the student is equipped only to deal with a short
> tourist visit to a French speaking region with the expectation that people
> there will be charmed at the attempts of the student to speak their language
> and then switch to English.
>
> Even after OAC French, there is still a long way to go. I took French
> through to OAC and in my final year we were expected to read 'Bildungsroman'
> type juvenile trash literature - I rebelled and read Hugo's 93 instead.
Hmm. In first-year German (10th grade), we read Erich Kästner's *Emil
und die Detektive* (a young-adult book by a well-known novelist) and
Storm's *Immensee* (practically the caricature parade example of
Romanticism), both in American-student editions with glossary and
grammatical notes; the latter in Fraktur, even.
(I'm still on the lookout for the sequel, *Emil und die drei Zwillinge*,
which apparently was also available in a student edition.)
-- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net
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