ACTUELLEMENT AFFNO AVRIL 2015

Ben
Cornwall,

de Prince
Rupert, a
ouvert le
spectacle

au Centre
Lester le
vendredi
soir, pendant
le festival de
la Cabane a
Sucre.
Patrick
Witwicki photo

DELF (from page 3)

For example, in 2012-13,
the Bulkley Valley School
Board (SD 54) received
more than $85,000 for
French language education;
meanwhile the Coast Mountain
School Board (Terrace, Kitimat
and Hazelton) received more
than $110,000. Not one cent
of that can be used on other
courses. The funding depends
on full-time equivalent
numbers (FTE); if that number
increases, so does the budget;
if the number goes down, the
amount of funding decreases.
So, the idea behind cutting
French Immersion isn’t as big
a savings as they might think;
but still, the possibility is
always there.

And here is the other part of
the equation: B2 is the DELF

standard that each student

needs to achieve, if they want
recognition as bilingual for
work (or to study at university
in France). One study that
was done in 2012 by ACPI
determined that the majority
of the students who achieved
a B2 status remained in
French Immersion, and every
year they remained (right up
until Grade 12), the odds for
success in DELF increased (so
students, for example, who
stayed in French Immersion
through Grade 11 had a better
chance at success than those
who only finished Grade 8
French Immersion). So, for
someone to say that French
Immersion is not required

at the high school level is
completely off-base.

SUGAR SHACK (from page 4)

Friday night, at the Lester
Centre, the Francophone musi-
cal group Pastiche performed a
concert.

Prince Rupert’s own Ben
Cornwall opened the show.
Because the majority of people
knew that Pastiche would also
be headlining the Sugar Shack
the next day, our numbers for
the Friday night show were
small; however, more than
50 people participated at the
concert.

The highlight of the festival
arrived Saturday morning, at
the Civic Centre.

The QCSS and Charles
Hays students volunteered
for us, so that meant we had

For AFFNO, we tried to
find more information on this
subject, and it was extremely
difficult, because, in the
rest of our province, people
generally aren’t talking about
DELF. Because, in Vancouver,
Victoria, or anywhere else for
that matter, French Immersion
numbers — even after
factoring in the 12% provincial
attrition rate — remain high.

For now, we found that
yes, DELF is beneficial to
those students who wish to
work here in Canada (or in
Europe) where comprehension
of the French language is
necessary (hence the B2 level).
Students who remain in French
Immersion until graduation
find success too, with the
Dogwood Certificate, so both

KITIMAT (de la page 6)

Samedi, on a fait notre
Brunch du Festival au Riv-
erlodge, et comme I’année
derniére, entre 60 et 70
personnes (participants et
bénévoles) étaient de la féte.

Peut-étre la pluie a fait
peur a la communauté, nous
n’en avons aucune idée.
Quand méme, il y a eu une
petite d’augmentation dans
le nombre de jeunes, avec
presque 20 enfants présents.

Le groupe Axes of Ego a joué
de la musique acoustique (et
un peu Francophone aussi!)
pour le brunch, mais comme
déja mentionné, il n’y avait
pas de neige, et alors pas de
chance de faire de la tire.
Nous en étions dégus mais
ironiquement, deux semaines
plus tard, Kitimat a eu 113 cm
de neige dans 24 heures.
Alors pour 2016, nous
discutons de nouvelles idées.

|

Peut-étre nous ferons le
brunch le dimanche?

Peut-étre nous essayerons
un partenariat avec la biblio-
théque pour que |’événement
soit simplement pour les
familles?

On verra, mais je vous
promets : notre festival
@hiver en 2016 sera en
février, pas en janvier. Et nous
espérons qu’on aura au moins
un pouce de neige ...

Page 7

more than 40 volunteers for the
event!

When the brunch was
ready at noon, we had a full
house! In total, with all of the
participants (and almost 100
children), we had close to 300
people (the number exact was
295.) This number was our
highest ever!

During the Sugar Shack
Brunch, the Pastiche Trio once
again provided the music,
but this time, they focused on
festival-type songs.

Everyone was dancing,
even when we started offering
up the toffee on the snow for
everyone.

See “Huge success” on page 15.

options work.

At the same time, the
majority of Canadian
Universities (and the province
in Quebec ih general) currently
don’t accept the DELF
certificate, so if a student wants
to pursue French language
education in our country, they
need to remain in French
Immersion. And yes, the longer
a student remains in French
Immersion, the better chance
they have of enjoying success
with the DELF B2.

So, what can we do in our
region? Yes, we need to do
more research, and we need to
continue to get any information
we can find to our members
(and I’m telling you this is not
easy because we don’t have
much help with this!) But at
the same time, we need to
continue to protect the French
language, and also, French
Immersion throughout our
region, because it’s obvious
that one without the other
(DELF and French Immersion)
does not work as well as both
together.

So yes, we support DELF
in tandem with French
Immersion, but if we can only
have one over the other, our
first choice will always be
French Immersion.