ik - love this article, by Kelly Egan in the Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Hello and bonjour. Imagine my pride some weeks ago when, during an interview, I was able to draw upon my vast knowledge of French to faithfully record the following pithy remark.
"Ma petite fille," said the grandmother, retelling the story of the first time, as a wide-eyed child, she had seen an airplane in 1920, "le fin du monde approche." And so it ran in the newspaper. Did you spot the whopper? As many alert readers pointed out, it's "la fin du monde," not le.
Imagine what a dumb-derrière I felt like. Bad anglo dog. Bad.
A few years ago, one of my good mates, and a wonderful writer besides, was attempting to refer in a news story to "coureurs de bois," or runners of the woods. Instead, it came out "coeurs de bois." Uh-huh. Hearts of wood. We're still yukking about it. (Not only feet of clay, but yes, a heart of wood!) All of which to say is that Ottawa is possibly the phoniest bilingual city in Canada, maybe "toute le monde." (Or is it "tout" or "tous"? Feel free to chime in.) If you've lived in the capital for a spell, you will know someone like this: mid-career in the public service, seeking advancement, stone-cold anglo, sent for French-language training to gain a promotion.
Suddenly, it's eight hours of French every day, French TV and radio at home, reading franco newspapers, working on their sandpaper accents.
And stressed-out at exam time? You know it.
(Only in government, by the way, could a C result be higher than a B; and I've failed to mention the best grade, E, which is exemption. No word on D.) Anecdotally, at least, it is also common to hear that the retooled anglo will not use his newfound French much, once returned to the workplace.
(The truly bilingual, imagine!, would rather switch to English than listen to Joe Nepean butcher his way through a presentation in the other langue officielle.) Why does the public service torture itself like this? Bilingualism in the federal workplace is a sound idea. No quarrel there. It is a good idea for the country. But what jobs need to be bilingual, how do we set a standard and how do we help the employee get there? (This is rhetorical. There exists, I have glanced, a massive body of information on each question.) But what, pray tell, is the point of trying to teach French to a fiftyish anglo who has one eye on retirement? Lord, we have some stupid notions in this country.
You may have caught wind of the story reported in Saturday's Citizen about the official second-language exams that fell into the hands of a private school.
The school wasn't just "teaching to the test," as it were. It gave more than 100 public servants the actual exam to practise on. No wonder the "exemption" rate -- the highest possible score -- was more than 90 per cent, 10 times above average.
It is rather scary, too, that it took a keener student to tip off the Public Service Commission to a fraud perpetrated under its very nose. After a year-long investigation, it still doesn't know exactly what happened.
It is now going to cost $1 million to come up with new tests. A million bucks? Astounding. These are multiple-choice exams consisting of 65 questions. How hard can it be to craft a new set? An audit of the problem reported there are 61 departments and agencies that administer the second-language tests, 323 test centres and 1,200 accredited testers. Leaked exam? Seriously, how could it NOT happen? What do we know about the other practice tests used across Canada? Were they just like the actual exam too? These tests must be quietly floating around everywhere.
Is the public service, in fact, full of phoney-baloney bilingual people who faked their way through? To back up for a moment, I'm not even persuaded it is the federal government's responsibility to train unilingual workers in the other official language.
Why can't they learn on their own time, using their own money? With promotion, the financial gain accrues to them, does it not? Where is the benefit for the taxpayer? Canada is supposedly full of bilingual people. Let them step forward and fill the bilingual positions.
The feds, meanwhile, need to ask themselves to what degree, in their own shop, they've contributed to this mass fakery.
Goodbye and au revoir.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Imagine what a dumb-derrière I felt like. Bad anglo dog. Bad.
A few years ago, one of my good mates, and a wonderful writer besides, was attempting to refer in a news story to "coureurs de bois," or runners of the woods. Instead, it came out "coeurs de bois." Uh-huh. Hearts of wood. We're still yukking about it. (Not only feet of clay, but yes, a heart of wood!) All of which to say is that Ottawa is possibly the phoniest bilingual city in Canada, maybe "toute le monde." (Or is it "tout" or "tous"? Feel free to chime in.) If you've lived in the capital for a spell, you will know someone like this: mid-career in the public service, seeking advancement, stone-cold anglo, sent for French-language training to gain a promotion.
Suddenly, it's eight hours of French every day, French TV and radio at home, reading franco newspapers, working on their sandpaper accents.
And stressed-out at exam time? You know it.
(Only in government, by the way, could a C result be higher than a B; and I've failed to mention the best grade, E, which is exemption. No word on D.) Anecdotally, at least, it is also common to hear that the retooled anglo will not use his newfound French much, once returned to the workplace.
(The truly bilingual, imagine!, would rather switch to English than listen to Joe Nepean butcher his way through a presentation in the other langue officielle.) Why does the public service torture itself like this? Bilingualism in the federal workplace is a sound idea. No quarrel there. It is a good idea for the country. But what jobs need to be bilingual, how do we set a standard and how do we help the employee get there? (This is rhetorical. There exists, I have glanced, a massive body of information on each question.) But what, pray tell, is the point of trying to teach French to a fiftyish anglo who has one eye on retirement? Lord, we have some stupid notions in this country.
You may have caught wind of the story reported in Saturday's Citizen about the official second-language exams that fell into the hands of a private school.
The school wasn't just "teaching to the test," as it were. It gave more than 100 public servants the actual exam to practise on. No wonder the "exemption" rate -- the highest possible score -- was more than 90 per cent, 10 times above average.
It is rather scary, too, that it took a keener student to tip off the Public Service Commission to a fraud perpetrated under its very nose. After a year-long investigation, it still doesn't know exactly what happened.
It is now going to cost $1 million to come up with new tests. A million bucks? Astounding. These are multiple-choice exams consisting of 65 questions. How hard can it be to craft a new set? An audit of the problem reported there are 61 departments and agencies that administer the second-language tests, 323 test centres and 1,200 accredited testers. Leaked exam? Seriously, how could it NOT happen? What do we know about the other practice tests used across Canada? Were they just like the actual exam too? These tests must be quietly floating around everywhere.
Is the public service, in fact, full of phoney-baloney bilingual people who faked their way through? To back up for a moment, I'm not even persuaded it is the federal government's responsibility to train unilingual workers in the other official language.
Why can't they learn on their own time, using their own money? With promotion, the financial gain accrues to them, does it not? Where is the benefit for the taxpayer? Canada is supposedly full of bilingual people. Let them step forward and fill the bilingual positions.
The feds, meanwhile, need to ask themselves to what degree, in their own shop, they've contributed to this mass fakery.
Goodbye and au revoir.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
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