By author/linguist Annie Bourret.

The exogamous families’ page

Identity Building and Developing Linguistic Bilingualism

Building a Francophone Identity

Of all of the elements involved
2 in identity building for pre-
schoolers, language development
plays a central role. The decisions
that minority francophone parents
make will have significant impact on
their children's sense of identity and
belonging as francophones. Indeed,
(at that age) the children are going
through the phases of developing
linguistic bilingualism and their skill in
understanding French varies enor-
mously. To help these children to
build their francophone identity and
acquire strong bilingual skills, we must
maximize their exposure to French by
associating the language with inter-
esting, fun, enriching experiences.

Redistributing Linguistic Capital

At five years of age, the unilin-
gual child has already acquired ap-
proximately 22,000 hours of linguistic
experience, aft 12 hours per day, 84
hours per week. Imagine that these
hours represent capital deposited in
a savings account. The bilingual child
has the same capital, but it is shared
between two accounts.

With two francophone parents,
the French account grows more
quickly than the English account at
first, but the English account, opened
at birth, also continues to grow, even
if only when the child is outside the
home.

With only one francophone par-
ent, deposits to the French account
are smaller—with luck, a few hours
(dollars) per day. Since the language
of communication in the home is usu-
ally English, it becomes practically
natural to speak English to. the child
after a conversation with the spouse
— especially if the spouse is present.
Therefore, the francophone adult
has to make an effort to adopt other
linguistic habits at home and reserve
moments to speak to the child exclu-
sively in French.

In both cases, the child may very
well still choose to communicate ex-
clusively in English, while understana-
ing French perfectly. This is known as
passive bilingualism. Hence, the im-
portance of an interesting, fun, en-
riching learning environment at all
times. This encourages the child to

develop an emotional attachment to
French and make the use of French
more relevant, which contributes to
identity building. To resume the bank
account metaphor, this increases the
account balance.

Fortunately, numerous — resour-
ces are available to assist franco-
phone parents. The most recent is
GRANDIR CBS, a French-language
adaptation of the LEAPBC™ program
from the British Columbia organiza-
tion, 2010 Legacies Now, in partner-
ship with the four francophone par-
ent federations of Western Canada
and several territorial partners.

GRANDIR CB"* Program
Recenily, many of the LEAPBC™
resources have been adapted to
French in an effort to support par-
ents and early learning profession-
als. The program includes a guide,
Pistes d’épanouissement pour les
petits (PEP), and 40 activity sheets
on literacy, physical activity and
healthy diet. A guide to healthy eat-
ing, Manger santé, will be available
soon. With its guiding philosophy, so
well expressed by its title, GRANDIR
(guider, raconter, apprendre, nour-
rir, découvrir, imaginer et rire)*, the
program content builds on a child's
natural craving for active learning. ™&

GRANDIR CB ““ resources are
available through our website at
www.fpfcb.bc.ca ».

* GRANDIR (guide, recount, learn, nourish, discover, imagine, laugh); in English,
LEAPBC™ (literacy, education, activity, and play)

Parenthése

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