Metro’s linguistic edge needs work
Parents worry over sparse immersion programs
Bing Thom and Loretta Kong still remember when Kong interviewed for a position with the renowned Vancouver-based architect’s firm in 2007.
“She spoke English, Mandarin and Cantonese,” said Thom, adding that was a key reason for hiring the young architect. “Loretta studied Chinese history and was immersed in the culture.”
Kong, now an associate with Shape Architecture in Vancouver, is a product of the extensive bilingual-immersion programs in Edmonton schools. Kong took half of her elementary and high-school classes in Mandarin Chinese.
“I do remember him being very surprised,” she recalled of the meeting with Thom. “It did impress him that a smaller centre like Edmonton had a program like this for more than 20 years.”
Since 1984, the Alberta capital has offered one of the largest Mandarin Chinese programs in Canada, with 2,009 students enrolled in 13 schools. It is the school district’s second-most-popular bilingual-immersion program, behind French with 3,703 students. What’s more, Edmonton also has 1,335 students in its Arabic program, in addition to having comparable programs for German, Hebrew, Spanish, Ukrainian and American Sign Language.
By comparison, Metro Vancouver schools, serving a much larger population, have about 500 students in total in immersion Mandarin programs.
As the school year starts, some parents are again demanding that B.C. — Canada’s gateway to the Pacific — should be doing more to increase foreign-language competency among students. The alternative, they say, is an increasingly uncompetitive workforce, especially when compared to graduates of programs like Edmonton’s.
“It blows me away that this is not something that we’re already going after,” said Charles Chang, president of marketing consultancy Lyra Growth Partners, which helped launch an effort to bring Mandarin programs to public schools in the Lower Mainland a decade ago. “It’s not, everyone has to become fluent,” Chang said. “But we should have way more urgency in our education system to understand, to be able to communicate with the people we are most likely to do business with in the future. It only makes sense.”
Three Metro school districts have intensive Mandarin programs:
Coquitlam started an elementary school program in 2010 that now has 271 students. Post-secondary offerings are being planned for when the first class enters high school in 2019.
Burnaby has a small Mandarin program for K-6.
The Vancouver school board runs two bilingual programs: A Grade 4-7 program at Jamieson Elementary and a kindergarten to Grade 7 program at Norquay Elementary with about 22-24 new students every year.
Started four years ago, Norquay’s first Mandarin bilingual class is en- tering Grade 5, and the Vancouver school board is considering whether to extend the offerings into high school.
VSB trustee Allan Wong said a staff report on the topic is expected this school year, but the challenge remains funding. A Fraser Institute report last year put B.C.’s perstudent public-school spending at $11,836, second-last among Canadian provinces. Alberta has the third-highest at $13,234.
“We understand the parents want this, but if the numbers aren’t there, that’s something we’d have to address,” Wong said, adding that he would like to start another Kindergarten to Grade 7 Mandarin program on the city’s west side if all the numbers made sense.
“With that restrictive funding, we have to make more difficult decisions than Alberta,” he added. “Others in the district would look at why we are funding this special group.
“If a class has 10 students and another has 22, that would not be fair and equitable.”
In a statement, the Ministry of Education pointed to scholarships and awards launched in the last few years that will allow more students to participate in study/school trips to China and Japan, with 18,700 international students in B.C. offering “a tremendous resource for resident B.C. students” to study languages outside dedicated bilingual programs.
“In B.C., there is provincial curriculum for a variety of languages such as French, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, Punjabi, German, etc.,” the statement said. “School districts choose the second languages that they choose to offer.”
Parents argue, however, that classes once or twice a week are inadequate. Eileen Sue, a Vancouver resident whose children are in VSB bilingual programs, said the language ability of someone who is immersed compared to getting a couple of hours a week on instruction is the difference between being able to communicate in realworld situations, or not.
“People have to realize that this is not a niche program, but an important core skill for the future generation,” said Sue, who with Chang was part of the parents group that helped lobby Vancouver and Coquitlam to start their programs. “I know a lot is out of (the school districts’) control, but if we allow public education to be mediocre, it will never be as strong as it could be.”
In addition to the lack of funding, there is also a lack of qualified Mandarin Chinese teachers for kindergarten and in specific subjects.
With that restrictive funding, we have to make more difficult decisions than Alberta.
Moreover, many programs — including Coquitlam’s — are backed by the controversial Confucius Institute, a group affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education in Beijing.
Some local Chinese-Canadian groups are increasingly concerned about the role of the Chinese government in influencing the community, including in education.
Statistics from the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada show that more Canadians believe Asian languages like Mandarin Chinese are crucial for the future.
In the foundation’s most recent poll, 41 per cent of respondents in Canada support more emphasis on teaching Asian languages in schools, with the poll number exceeding 50 per cent in B.C.
The challenge, said Chang, remains a fundamental lack of will from society at large.
“We had a whole whack of parents who were willing to do the heavy lifting,” he said of his group’s efforts a decade ago.
“These are entrepreneurs, people who know how to get things done, who are willing to put in countless hours to get this going. But it’s much easier to say: ‘Let’s not be first, let’s see how other people do.’ ”
Sue believes a bigger cause of the lack of will may be the large size of the Chinese-Canadian community in Metro Vancouver that has led to the creation of many private Chinese schools and private language programs.
For some, she said, that signals that a public school bilingual program isn’t necessary.
Jimmy Mitchell, vice-president of business development for Advantage BC, said his group includes Vancouver’s linguistic convenience for Chinese businesses as a point of attraction for Asian investors in its literature. But Mitchell, a former diplomat who speaks fluent Mandarin, said he is worried that Vancouver is not doing enough to capitalize on that advantage.
He said people are often shocked when he starts speaking Chinese.
“There are lots of Chinese speakers in Vancouver, but they’re all Chinese,” he said. “Here, I speak three Chinese words, and people’s heads explode. Why is that? It’s because I’m unusual, and that’s a terrible thing.”
Mitchell said his daughter, raised partly in Shanghai and Taipei, was able to go in a few months from being hired as a 16-year-old part-time worker at a local retailer to being responsible for all its sales to Chinese-speaking clients, all because of her Mandarin.
Architect Thom said someone needs to take the initiative, because such education programs are key for Vancouver to realize its economic strength in the world — whether it’s Mandarin, Tagalog, Thai, Malay or another language.
“We are a trading nation,” he said.
“In order to trade, you have to communicate. … The worst-case scenario is that we are sending a message that we don’t welcome foreigners.
“That’s a very bad message, because that will have a compounding effect for multiple years to come.”