For decades, French immersion and Francophone Schools have been developing at a thriving pace in Canada, closely linked to a bilingual (and not a multilingual) ideal. Despite a "superdiverse" (Vertovec: 2007, 2014) society,... [ view full abstract ]
For decades, French immersion and Francophone Schools have been developing at a thriving pace in Canada, closely linked to a bilingual (and not a multilingual) ideal. Despite a "superdiverse" (Vertovec: 2007, 2014) society, multilingualism and language awareness hardly penetrate school practices.
In this presentation, we argue that the reconciliation process with Indigenous Peoples engaged by the Canadian society (TRC: 2015) represents a meaningful opportunity to introduce both language awareness and indigenous language revitalization into mainstream Canadian education programming; and to deconstruct the still-dominant monolingual and standardized approaches to language learning currently most broadly used in classroom, instead embracing a multilingual turn (May: 2014) for Canadian students.
This presentation will be illustrated by data drawn from a collaborative research project aiming to develop classroom materials in French, English and Mechif. Now an endangered language, Mechif is the historical and official language of Metis People in Canada, generally described as a mix of French and Cree, despite local variations and translanguaging practices. Our research addresses the potential for these pedagogic materials to raise students' awareness around language practices in multilingual contexts. Likewise, we will describe how these materials may push students to draw connexions between language learning, global citizenship and social justice.
May, S. (2014). The Multilingual Turn. New York and London: Routledge.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future; Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Retrieved from www.trc.ca
Vertovec, S. (2007). "Super-diversity and its implications", Ethnics and Racial Studies 30(6): 1024-1054.
Vertovec, S. (2014). Superdiversity. New York and London: Routledge.
