Mile End Anglos learn French to better integrate

A group of Mile End anglophones are learning French with the goal of better understanding the francophone culture that surrounds them.

Speaking on CBC Montreal’s Daybreak, one of the women who teaches the class twice a week spoke about the need to integrate in order to understand and be understood.

According to the EKOS research poll commissioned by CBC, 58 per cent of anglophones feel welcome in Quebec and 85 per cent believe it is important to know about Quebec’s French culture.

Patricia Boushel, who took over the class after her friend started it six months ago, says the classes have helped create a curiosity in the students.

 "It’s helping a lot of the people... to become more engaged with the ideas and the conversations that are happening in the French media," she said.

"They’ve become more aware of what people around them are talking about. I think it helps foster a feeling of identifying with some group."

Boushel thinks Quebec’s linguistic tensions can be eased by classes like the one she teaches.

"The current discourse around language identity is fear-based. This dynamic is as old as the country and we have to get past that," she said.

"We just have to think about the quality of ideas that are being communicated and be interested in that. Really, once you just let go of your insecurities around expressing the idea, it isn’t about the mode of expression, it really is about what’s behind it."

Boushel, who is bilingual, does not consider herself an anglophone or a francophone.

"It doesn’t represent my history, it doesn’t represent my experience and I find that there’s a huge slice of the population... who feel equally non-identified by the way that politics and the media use these labels," she said.

For now, she’ll continue to try to foster dialogue through her Mile End French classes.