French Personal Narrative

Essay 2
One of my mom’s favorite stories from my childhood, is one where at five years old I make a life altering decision. She occasionally tells this story when someone asks her, “how did your daughter get into french” or, if she just feels like bragging about me. According to her, she went into a bank and left me listening to the radio in my booster seat in our black van. Upon her return, I exclaimed, “ Mommy, I’m going to french school”, as clearly and factual as if I had just said that the sky was blue; to this unusual exclamation my mom asked,“ what are you talking about?”. I responded “ I heard on the radio that I can learn to talk french”, and my mom said, “ You’re school doesn't teach french”, but my determined 5 year old self was not done with the idea, “ that's okay, I will start in grade one”. We went home and discussed the idea with my dad. While my parents were supportive, they did bring up a few persuasive elements against going into immersion, such

as the fact that they did not, nor did anyone they know, speak french, but I remained persistent that I would be going to french school. I was later enrolled in french immersion at Holyrood. This decision started a life long journey. My basis in French immersion greatly influences my identity, as it gives me a unique point of view, and has created many life changing opportunities for me. Unfortunately, it also means that I live between two worlds, never quite identifying myself as French but still linguistically separated from the rest of Canadian Anglophones.
To begin, going through french immersion gave me a unique point of view, by altering my linguistic identity and by showing me different opinions than i would have got in an english program. Most of my teachers in school were from Quebec and just last week I was given one example of how this changed my point of view, My uncle was at the table, discussing the hard economic times facing albertans these days and the possibility that alberta might receive a provincial equalization payment from the federal government. As it would appear, from listening to my uncle and grandparents, albertans were not too pleased with paying into this program. As my uncle so eloquently put it “ Why should we pay so that the french can go to university for free? We should have kept that money to pay for Albertan citizens’ schooling.” Now I’m no expert and perhaps this is what anglophones believe in general ,or perhaps it is isolated to my redneck uncle ,but I couldn't help and laugh thinking to myself, “ Oh, so it wasn't the astronomical provincial taxes that my highschool teachers were always complaining about that pays for the social benefits in quebec; it must be the equalization payments; equalisation means that the government would want the quebecoise to be better off.” Knowing that no one in my family would take kindly to the sarcasm or the opinion, I kept it to myself. I was taken aback at the fact that had I not been in immersion, and been taught by people from quebec, I might have agreed with my uncle. This is just one example chosen from many little moments and disagreements that allow me to attribute part of my point of view and as such, identity to have been altered by my french studies. Furthermore, immersion allowed me to develop a unique linguistic identity. While linguistic identity is a sort of ambiguous form, with many different aspects that can come into play such as a political aspects, that language often unite nations and create alliances or, personal aspects looking at how we orientate our on view based on the languages we use to communicate. Also, one can describe himself/herself based on the language one speaks. I tend to see linguistic identity more in a personal context, because my language and the way I communicate with the people around me alters who I am as a person. Having another language, has allowed me to broaden this identity and communicate more effectively with all kinds of people. One recent example from my life is when I was able to better communicate was while at work, I am a receptionist at a chiropractic office, and a very french lady walked in; I listened while she struggled to ask me a question about direct billing her insurance company and I responded in french, answering her question. From then on, we conversed in french, which was much easier for her and for me. Since I had the opportunity to learn a new language, I developed a broadened linguistic identity and gained a unique perspective.
Secondly, french immersion has created countless opportunities.

Allowing me fantastic experiences that aided in personal development. One such experience occurred after grade 10, and it ignited the travel bug inside me. I went on a one month exchange to france where i got to not only improve my language skills but I made some incredible friends and got to see an entirely different part of the world. My family lived in Aix-en-Provence in southern france so while i didn't get to see any castles I did get to go scuba diving for the first time. During my stay the family also took me for a week to Corsica and another week in italy. This experience was not only incredible for sightseeing but also i learnt a ton about a new culture and gained a sense of independance after being away from home for the first time and surviving a month an entire ocean away from my mom. I would have never had this experience and I certainly would not have adapted so well into their home had i not taken 9 years of french

immersion.