ENABLING some of the population to speak fluent French is central to fostering the Island’s history and heritage, Deputy Philip Bailhache has said as he confirmed he would maintain his proposition on bilingual schools despite opposition from the Education Minister.
Deputy Bailhache expressed disappointment at Deputy Rob Ward’s comments published last week but said the matter was one for the States, which is due to debate the proposal this week.
He said he wanted the Assembly to express a view on whether encouraging bilingualism was a good thing or not.
“I think this is a really exciting proposition. Language learning by immersion is just so easy, particularly with small children.
“It happens naturally, and the evidence is before our noses in that respect with the Portuguese, Polish and Romanian communities where children who have no English go into the primary schools and, after a relatively short time, they are able to communicate and eventually become completely fluent in English. That’s a wonderful thing.
“The proposition which I am putting forward is to build upon that experience and to ensure that we have an element of our population which is able to communicate easily in French and in English.
“The minister’s comments don’t deal very much with the positive benefits of bilingualism. I don’t want to repeat what I said in my report but there are many advantages of bilingualism,” he said.
Deputy Bailhache rejected the suggestion that newer French-teaching initiatives outlined by the minister could be equated with the benefits of a bilingual school. And he invoked his own experience at school.
“Although I speak French moderately fluently, I’m not bilingual. I was not brought up bilingually. I went through a British educational system. I did an A-level in French but although I could write an essay on Molière’s Bourgeois gentilhomme, I could not effectively converse with people in the French language, and bilingualism is all about conversations and communication.
“The Europeans do this so much better than us, and if one looks at the ability of French children and German children to speak English – and I have personal experience of this as a result of the Bad Wurzach connection – one sees that these Europeans can communicate and our children cannot.
“I think that some good work is being done in primary schools at the moment, and I certainly don’t denigrate the good things that have happened in primary schools in the last few years, but the ability to speak French fluently only comes through immersion. Either one goes to a foreign country and lives with a family or lives in a community which speaks the language, and then you absorb it and you become fluent; or you do it at the educational level in a bilingual school,” he said.
Deputy Bailhache said he was not sure that he accepted figures provided by the minister to indicate the cost of converting three primary schools to bilingual education, but emphasised that the £2 million quoted in the comments related to the whole seven years of education.
The Education Department is in the process of canvassing the opinions of head teachers, views which may inform this week’s debate. Deputy Bailhache said he thought those views were likely to reflect the attitude of the department although he thought it could equally incentivise schools which might then produce a different response.
Asked about likely support within the Chamber, Deputy Bailhache said: “I accept that, in the light of the minister’s apparent hostility, I have an uphill task but it’s a really important subject which goes to the heart of what we believe is the importance, or otherwise, of Jersey’s culture.
“Jersey’s heritage is bilingual; Jersey’s history is bilingual. Enabling a cohort of our population to speak fluently the language of our immediate neighbour seems to me to be of the greatest importance, and I await the outcome of the debate with interest.”
