Join us in our next event about bilingualism in multilingual contexts!

Canada has two official languages (English & French), an Indigenous population with several languages, and ethnolinguistic groups who add to the linguistic diversity in classrooms. French immersion programs started 50 years ago and enjoy increasing popularity with anglophone students and speakers of other languages. While plurilingual pedagogies (García & Kleyn, 2016; Lau & Van Viegen, 2020) are crucial in Western Canadian classrooms, some teachers reject them and instead prioritize French in support of this minority language. Based on field work in an Alberta high school, I examine the discourses of students and teachers related to learning and teaching French, in addition to English and other languages, and I ask how navigating this complexity intersects with the students’ construction of identities as new Canadians.

Guest speaker: Prof. Sylvie Roy, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Organisation & information: grabiele.budach@uni.lu