Bilingualism: Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club: At Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 — John Shaqi
Bilingualism: Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club: At Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916Belcourt, N. A. (Napoléon-Antoine)
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Bilingualism: Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club: At Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916
Belcourt, N. A. (Napoléon-Antoine)
Bilingualism; Education, Bilingual -- Ontario; Language policy -- Ontario; Speeches, addresses, etc.
3. Subject in the case of each school to the direction and
approval of the superintendent of Education (I use that
term advisably as corresponding to the term used in
Ontario) the following modifications shall also be made in
the course of study in separate schools.
The use of ENGLISH FOR INSTRUCTION AND COMMUNICATION.
(1) WHERE NECESSARY, in the case of English-speaking
pupils, English may be used as the language of instruction
and communication; but such use of English shall not be
continued beyond Form 1 (that is the first two years the
child goes to school) excepting that on the approval of the
Superintendent of Education, it may also be used as the
language of instruction and communication in the case of
pupils beyond Form 1, who are unable to speak and
understand the French language.
Now, gentlemen, will you seriously consider that? How would you like
that kind of thing, you the English-speaking people of the Province of
Quebec, if you could use your language in your schools, as a means of
instruction and communication in the first form, that is during the
first two years, only if and when the Superintendent of Education for
this Province, after examination of your children, might say it was
absolutely necessary to use English?
As a subject of study let us carry on the same process. I will read
further from regulation 17, making the same transposition:
"English as a subject of study in separate (or dissentient)
schools."
4. In schools where English--(remember, gentlemen, we are
now in 1912)--has HITHERTO been a subject of study, the
separate (or dissentient) school board may provide, under
the following conditions, for instruction in English,
reading, grammar and composition in Form 1 to 4, in
addition to the subjects prescribed for the separate (or
dissentient) schools.
(1) Such instruction in English may be taken only by pupils
whose parents or guardians direct that they shall do so,
and may, notwithstanding section 3 above, be given in the
English language.
(2) Such instruction in English shall not interfere with
the adequacy of the instruction in French, and the
provision for such instruction in English in the time-table
of the school shall be subject to the approval and
direction of the Superintendent of Education, and shall not
in any day EXCEED ONE HOUR in each class room, except where
the time is increased upon the order of the superintendent.
Would that be agreeable to you, gentlemen, to have only one hour of
English in your school, and that confined to reading, composition and
grammar, and nothing else, and just one hour--and more than that if it
pleased the Superintendent of Education to say that you should have
English for one minute only each day, would you be satisfied with that?
That is Regulation No. 17 in all its simplicity!
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