The silver lining ...

WMD: Returning to the theme of Vancouver's "language confusion," this time examining its benefits, with also a nod toward the difficulty facing immigrants. Source column here. Reproduced below:

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Frustration of garbled English makes us stronger

Kids who grow up in melting pot more prepared for new global reality

Barry Link, Special to Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, October 03, 2007

If Vancouver is turning into a linguistic Olympics for longtime residents, think of what immigrants trying to learn English go through.

That was the point made by at least one of the letters I received in the past week in response to last week's column about Vancouver as a mess of potage when it comes to the diversity of languages now found here. The writer, who identified himself only as Arthur, noted what it was like to come to Canada several decades ago as a visible minority with a heavy accent. When trying to get service, both at businesses and with government, native English-speakers often got impatient with him. Some yelled, others slammed doors in his face. It was the traditional Canadian welcome to outsiders: the cold shoulder only a cold-weather country can give.

Immigration to Canada is much easier now than it was when my paternal great-grandparents, who did not speak English, embarked on a one-way trip to North America more than a century ago to scratch out a living as farmers on the prairie. It was worse for non-European immigrants, who Canadian administrations--barely past the colonial stage--tried to legislate out of existence.

Newcomers, especially from the dominant immigrant streams, today enjoy established communities with familiar language and customs supported by energetic non-profits. But while such support is welcome, the thriving immigrant communities that provide it reduce the need to adapt in a new country.

Some readers reminded me that government funds English training for adult immigrants. This past summer, spending for such programs in B.C. received a minor boost of about $11 million a year, in part to alleviate waiting lists for these services. But considering that B.C. took in more than 42,000 immigrants last year, that's not a lot of money.

And mass language training in classrooms for adults is not entirely effective, as people in the industry have told me. One teacher threw up her arms in frustration, claiming that after months of classroom instruction, adult students--with a "look at me I'm an immigrant" innocence--were still using mangled constructions like "What you name?"

Arthur says he learned English partially through ESL classes. But the bulk of his learning came from listening to English-language radio and on the job as a cashier. That he learned largely on his own is a testament to his tenacity, and that of millions of others like him. It also speaks to the limitations of formal, mass education in language training. Those of you who have long since lost your high school French, learned in classrooms of two or three dozen fellow students of varying cluelessness, understand.

So there we are: a city with lots of newcomers and a visible lessening of commonly understood English in ordinary transactions of daily life. Various ethnic groups--English-speakers included--are hiving off into separate cultural enclaves with their own media, shopping and social celebrations. Governments don't take this reality seriously, except to dole out token grants. And no one has a clue about how our city will look or feel in 20 years. We might not like it.

Is there a bright side? Yes. It's frustrating, as readers noted, to do business with scribbled notes and hand gestures, or to turn to strangers for translation help. But perhaps what does not kill us--but merely annoys us--makes us stronger.

I'm thinking of kids. The debate--such as there is--is still on about the quality of schooling in Vancouver elementary and high school classrooms awash in languages. But students today are learning to navigate very complex cultural and social interactions. It's a requirement to survive socially. That experience can't help but prepare our next generation to be flexible, mobile and, we hope, broad-minded in a world of global markets and global problems.

Paradoxically, the complexity and frustration we face in Vancouver also teaches us the great antidote to prejudice, which is to treat people we meet in this city every day as individuals, and not as stereotypes of whatever ethnic or cultural category we're tempted to cast them into. It's our only realistic choice. Get out and deal with the new Vancouver language confusion by taking people as they come. The alternatives are to stay home, draw the blinds and pretend that nothing has changed--or move to Manitoba.

Comments

[Stephen Holland]

I spent a couple of years in DSL (Danish as a Second Language) classes while I was living in Denmark, and I can attest to how hard it is to learn a language in a class room. I probably learned more Danish by actually having to use it in conversations, in stores, and at government offices. Classes are essential, and it is a travesty that BC has such long waiting lists for people to get into ESL classes, but my experience has been that these classes alone will not get people to learn a language.