A4 - Friday, October 12, = EW .\ “ _ Oo 1984 - North Shore News Strictly personal by Bob Hunter that we have minister: Trudeau, Clark, Turner, Mulroney. We are, indeed, into a new age, fellow Canadians. One of the most dramatic signs that the times have changed ts the astonishingly high number of English- speaking Canadians who are eager to put their kids into French immersion classes: 60 per cent Coleen Gibbons of West Vancouver draws my alten- tion to the fact that a recent Gallup poll taken for a group called Canadian Parents for French, of which she ts the local chapter's president, shows nearly two out of three English-speakers want French instruction in school. She says the poll results ‘*show that English-speaking Canada has accepted the value of having two languages.”’ The main reason given by the survey’s respondents for their interest in French education was the better job gpporunaes open to bil- gual Canadians. Other reasons: intellectual growth and cultural enhancement. Ironically, the reason ‘which won a place at the very Brand nt fas navional unity. Good old Tagmatic Canadians! Nobody's waving the flag Giving the kids a better shot at the future is the name ot the game. That's all But isn't that the very best reason? It doesn't ideological or baggage. Asa ‘‘tallen francophone” I must say | get as impatient as any umilingual Englisher with instructions in French, although it doesn’t drive me anywhere as far up the wall as metric. (Ahem. Yoo hoo, Tomes. Is the axe sharpen. ed?) Yet it seems to me, nit picks aside, the logic of buil- ingualism 1s irresistible. Two tongues are better than one. Ideally, everybody would be multilingual. | have yet to hear anyone complain that they were handicapped by being able to speak an ex- tra language. jt turns out that 10,000 students took French immer- sion instruction in B.C. last year, a 22 per cent imcrease from the year before When final enrolments for the cur fea of the list of mouves carry navionalistic > ew alternative "est bien, eh? NE OF INTERESTING side ettects of the federal election was the fact landed our fourth straight bilingual prime rent vear are tabulated, a similar increase is expected In Calgary, when the Board of Education an nounced plans for early enrolment in French immer- sion, 20 parents camped oul overnight in freezing temperatures to be first on the schools’ doorstep. In Calgary!’ In Newfoundland = last week, a group of parents refused to send their kids to school unless they were given Instruction in French. * The phenomenon is guntry-wide. And according i Geoffrey Mills, a director or the B.C. government’s guage services branch, it’s Ot just members of the cial and economic elite who nt their children to learn rench. **Blue-collar workers want thei krds in the pro- gram, too.”’ Of course there are people hike SFU associate linguistics professor Hector Hammerly, who says that all these pro- grams produce 15 a hybrid language he calls ‘‘Frenglish.’’ Be that as it may, a tongue-and-a-half sull adds up to more than just one tongue. 1 have a_ personal plaint with the program com immersion Lenrolled my five ee, for entertainment & socializing Pyen co cahifertt po VV facdect foal tr euy Preectty bow cetera jeter poy dee pts ae ee | bolyik KV i pe “Eh ily A fh le Good times special 3to6 Monday to Friday year-old last year, but after a tew weeks the teacher asked me to yank him. He was driv- ing her batty. Naturally, 1 thought the teacher was a turkey—and the fact is that there are good teachers and bad. Butif you can’t handle a kindergarten-level kid, surely you ought to find another line of work. On the other hand, who knows? My kid is probably a complete nerd in class. A chip off the old block, y'know? Oh well, we'll try again, although wt won't be as good as immersion at the beginning. Most of us now unders tand, whether we like it oF not, that at least one job in the country is only open to bilingual) candidates, and that’s the prime ministership. A new pattern has been set in stone One thing to consider tt we ever do become a tunc tioning bilingual nation, we'll (finally have a way of know- jing how we ditfer from ‘mericans. Pg est bien, ch? CYou’re Invited to Hear Billy Graham in Person with us October 14:21, 7:30 each evening/Sundays only 3:30 PM B.C. Place Stadium, in Vancouver set aside an evening -join us if you need transportation call 985-7131 CANYON HEIGHTS CHAPEL 4840 Capilano Road. 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