Article: Bilingualism goal remains elusive

This is an edited version of an editorial in Calgary Herald published on Jan 1,2008 Toronto Star


As Canadians, we are proud to be called a country of bilingualism. Sadly, provincial and federal governments have been throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting bilingualism, without achieving reasonable results. According to the latest Statistics Canada data, the number of bilingual high-school students has dropped since Ottawa adopted its bilingualism policy in 2003.

Linguistics guru and world-renowned language expert Stephen Krashen says fluency speakers learn best in low-anxiety situations that allow for natural situations that allow for natural communication, where the focus in less on ' the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding." The current way of teaching a second language , which forces the students review anew each year what should have been learned the year before is inefficient. Instead of progressing to a more complex mastery of the language, the student stagnates at the most basic level after years.

Second language acquisition takes a multi-faceted approach involving more than rote. It is about communicating, and that requires practice and opportunity.