Students ask, Parlez-Vous français? Mais-Oui!

A good Community Service Learning projects begin with the question, what is an authentic need in our community?  

On the small island of Harrington Harbour, Madame Monger and in the town of Chevery, Madame Nadeau-Monger understood that students living in geographically isolated, completely Anglophone communities do not always see the day to day need for French that other Anglophone students in Quebec might observe.   The two teachers asked the question, how could we change the attitude of students towards French?

This was the start of Parlez-Vous?, a collaborative project between the communities of Harrington Harbour, Chevery and Kegaska on the Lower North Shore of Quebec.  

The CLC schools wanted to show students that even though people live in English in the village(s), many speak French and use those skills for work purposes, often outside of the community. The teachers thought if the students realized that people they know, and often look up to, are bilingual, the students might have a different, more positive view on bilingualism.

The Project:

Students were asked to prepare questions they would like to ask bilingual community members.  Three classes met over the videoconference to select the best questions and picked a name for the project.  

Outside of class time, the students approached a community member to go over the questions and a second meeting to conduct the interview. After the interviews were completed, the students and teachers used Windows Movie Maker to edit everything together.

When everything was done, the students viewed the video in class and then screened the video for the community using the videoconference.

A final activity was writing thank you notes for the 'stars' (en français), and launching the videos at a community event.

What did the students learn?

Through the project, students realized that even in a close community, being bilingual is a very important asset. Students also discovered that there were a lot more bilingual people in their community than they previously thought.

Madame Monger noted that students had to go outside of their comfort zone and interact with adults in the community and also speak publicly in another language.  Producing a short film presented an opportunity to get familiar with Windows Movie Maker. Finally, the videoconference collaboration between the three schools allowed the students to get to know each other a little better, important because they will become classmates in secondary IV & V when they will all be together at Netagamiou School in Chevery.

Madame Nadeau-Monger noted that some among the greatest successes was “the look on our students faces when they saw someone they knew speaking French”.

Many thanks to the teachers, students and community members who participated in a wonderful initiative that promotes the importance of bilingualism on the Lower North Shore of Quebec.