Speakeasy wrote:Lianne, your intervention, in reply to a rather innocuous post, is difficult to understand. What were you trying to achieve? When you qualify something as "notoriously awful" and then, in a subsequent post, refer to this an "off-handed joke" only to qualify French language instruction as "crappy", I believe that I am allowed to take you a your word; that is, you hold Canadian instruction of French as a Second Language in extremely low regard. Perhaps you could strengthen your argument by providing a little proof?
My position is that it is quite possible that any perceived problems with Canadian instruction of French as a Second Language are not isolated to our nation's educational system. That is, second language instruction throughout North America is widely perceived as being ineffective and in need of a complete overhaul. There have been numerous discussions on this forum wherein many members express such concerns.
Finally, my comments concerning the discouraging results of ROC high school students' measurable skills in other subjects were a sincere expression of dissatisfaction with observable results. In my opinion, the problem of "poor education" is wide-spread: the system has been producing barely-literate and only nominally-informed citizens for decades, instruction in French as a second language is but one example.
*sigh*
1) My very first comment on this subject was just an off-handed joke. One that I did not expect to be controversial. I only got more serious in subsequent replies because you did.
2) Yes, I hold Canadian instruction of FSL in low regard. So does everyone I know. I have no proof to give, only the anecdote that I and most of the people I know went to English schools, took French for a number of years, and finished knowing a negligible amount of French. I can add to that the fact that French teachers are not required to be fluent in French in English schools; they need only know what they have to teach.
2a) Exception: I know many people who went to French immersion schools who ended up fluent in French. I speak only of English schools here.
3) I never said this was a problem only in Canadian schools. Given the United States' reputation for monolingualism, I don't imagine their language education is any better.
4) Your comment on the other subjects came across like you were saying that Quebec was better than the rest of Canada in that regard. If this was not your intention, then never mind. I feel no need to debate the overall quality of Canadian public education. (If you did mean Quebec was better, then my annoyance stands, but I will not be able to argue further on that within the rules of this forum.)