New Brunswick is the only constitutionally bilingual province (French and English) in Canada.

35% of our high-school graduates are bilingual.

Switzerland has four national languages: German (65%), French (20%), Italian (7.5%) and in remote mountain valleys, the Romansch language. 68% of the German-speaking Swiss speak English. Half the French and thirty percent of the Italians speak English.

To be fair, Switzerland did not originate in conquest or in the breakdown of multinational empires. It grew out of hill tribes banding together for mutual defense. Neutrality has since kept the Country from ripping itself apart during wars involving France, Germany and Italy.
Switzerland is split relatively evenly between Catholics and Protestants but there is little correlation between language and religion (except among Italian-speaking Swiss).

The Swiss state gives no formal recognition to ethnicity as a basis of political incorporation, citizenship, legal rights, and allocation of resources or assignment to school systems. The three main ethnic groups are fairly equal in wealth, so none of the language groups feels they are subsidizing the others. Most of the richest cantons are German-speaking, but so are the two poorest, which are “hillbilly cantons” in the Alps.

Earlier this week, New Brunswick’s Education Minister, Kelly Lamrock announced a comprehensive review of “French Second Language” programming and services within New Brunswick’s Anglophone school system.

It was a response to the fact that only 35% of New Brunswick’s students are graduating from high school with bilingual competency despite Government’s goal of 70%. Lamrock’s announcement is admirable but his review may be directed more to the symptom rather than the cause of the problem.

60% of New Brunswick’s working age population lacks the literacy and numeracy competencies necessary for coping in the modern economy so said a report issued by Statistics Canada and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in May 2005.

80% of our working-age population (16-65) who can boast high school graduation have less-than-required literacy skills. Is it any wonder that only 35% of them are bilingual?

66% of our population whose mother tongue is French scored below the poverty line in literacy while 50% of those whose mother tongue is English failed the test of literacy in the IALSS 2003 study.

Almost 40% of our youth measured in the study had prose literacy scores below level three, meaning they lack the proficiency level needed in today’s global economy.

The Frank McKenna years identified bilingualism as an economic advantage for New Brunswick. It was used aggressively and successfully to recruit thousands of customer-service jobs to the Province and continues to be a point of differentiation in new business recruitment but with numbers like the above, we’ll soon be running out of bilingual workers.

The assumption of Lamrock’s review, as I understand it is that the problem of under-achievement lies in the teaching program. It may, but I suspect it is also inherent in the community and in the environment in which second languages are taught and practiced. Total immersion both in classroom and community is clearly the best way to become bilingual. French language studies limited to the classroom are neutered by outside (of classroom) daily living experiences in another language.

Kids who can do two languages tend to be higher achievers than their unilingual mates. There is resistance in the education system to streaming programs that separate elite students from the rest of us. Kids who do poorly in French immersion often have learning disabilities that go undetected until it’s too late. Some of the kids in immersion are in the program because their parents force them.

Others lose interest when they find attraction in the opposite sex or non-academic interests.

Children of unilingual parents don’t have bilingual role models and often have difficulty getting help in their second language because their parents are relegated to the sidelines. I’m told by a teacher friend that immersion drop-out rates increase dramatically after grade 10 when kids are faced with tougher learning challenges in science and math.

There is another factor. Kids who do not enroll in French immersion programs only receive about an hour a day of French language instruction. That would be close to a waste of time in terms of making them bilingual.

Lamrock’s study group may want to look at the experience of a First Nations group in Truro, Nova Scotia. They had language and comprehension problems with band members who were participants in the public school system. Young band members had a 75% drop-out rate. Band elders came to understand that students had comprehension problems related to language.

They addressed the problem by hiring special education folks and putting them in the classroom with band students. That one move jumped their high school graduation rate to 95%.

Such action may not be feasible on a province-wide scale but it illustrates the point that language comprehension is not the same for all people and all communities of people. It also suggests that curriculum may not be as important to comprehension as the learning environment and the one-on-one assistance that is made available to students. I’m reminded of a recent circumstance where a local entrepreneur was anxious to launch a digital learning program for high school drop outs.

The program assumed a degree of computer literacy. The encountered problem was that computer literacy is related to real time literacy.

If one can’t read and understand instructions, it’s difficult if not impossible to access an on-line learning program.

The flip side of that argument is the real time experience of kids (small children) who learn to use computers without training or literacy.

Computer and Internet technology impress language on young minds. One day, it may be possible for people to use computers to make themselves both literate and bilingual.

Mr. Lamrock should take note.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com