The past few weeks I have had detailed conversations with my family members about our lingual history. While having these conversations, I realized that the language policy in Canada has affected some of my family members. As mentioned in my language profile, my great-grandpa immigrated to Canada from Russia. However, when he lived in Russia, the only language he would speak was German. When he immigrated to Canada, he was no told to no longer speak German. Instead, he was told to only speak English because that is what so-called true Canadians spoke. When my family first told me about my great-grandpa, I was surprised by this news. It is both shocking and interesting to hear that one of my past family members spoke another language. Additionally, this language could have been passed down to me as well if language policies in Canada did not exist when my great-grandpa immigrated.
The Language Planning & Policy in Saskatchewan schools PowerPoint mentions, “The early 1900s is characterized by a series of policies seemingly designed to control and produce the nation as politically obedient, European, and as close to British as possible” (R. Khanam, personal communication, February 24, 2021). This seems to align quite well with the events that occurred when my great-grandpa immigrated to Canada. Since Europeans spoke English, the idea that all non-European immigrants abandon their home language and speak English was enforced. To the government at this time, speaking English in Canada was seen as a way to unite everyone. In addition, the videos The Education of New Canadians and Saskatchewan Schools and the New Canadians both demonstrated the idea of immigrants conforming to the European way. In both of these videos, young immigrants and their parents attended several welcoming activities in Saskatchewan. There were games that the children played which were all commonly considered to be European games. While children played games that are common in Canada, there were also several exhibits on train carts to show immigrants firsthand several things that people in Canada do. On these carts, there was a science section, livestock exhibit, and more. While watching these videos, I remembered more information about my great-grandpa. When his family immigrated to Saskatchewan, they supposedly attended several activities and conformed to this new way of being. When I was first told this, I figured the activities included sorting out financials, housing, and more. However, after watching these videos I realized that my great-grandpa also participated in these activities shown in the videos.
The topic of Indigenous languages has impacted my perspective quite a lot. Since my uncle is Indigenous and adopted by a white family, it is shocking to hear about the things he had to face growing up. While my uncle is adopted by a white family, he still had a treaty card growing up and today as well. I feel that the Official Languages Act of 1969 still choosing to not include Indigenous languages impacts my uncle a lot (R. Khanam, personal communication, March 3, 2021). Due to Indigenous languages not being included in the 1969 Act, my uncle was unable to learn his language at school nor was he given the chance to learn the language in other public settings.
While doing the language profile assignment and further investigation on comparing my family to the class materials, many things have become visible. I hope that in the future, my uncle will be given the opportunity to learn at least some of his Indigenous language. Perhaps, I could even learn the Indigenous language with him. As well, my great-grandpa faced a language loss growing up which has inspired me. I plan to set a goal for myself to learn to spell and speak a few German words by the end of March. I feel that this goal will honour my great-grandpa since I never got to meet him, and I never got to learn German which would have been passed down to my family by him if the language loss never occurred.
Lastly, I have begun developing a lesson to do with the Mexican students on March 24. While preparing the lesson, I have set some goals for myself. First of all, I hope to be able to properly pronounce each of the student’s names on March 24. I feel that I could have tried harder to learn how to say their names in the first meeting. Additionally, I feel that learning to say their name will relay a positive message back to them. In the first meeting, I was placed into breakout rooms where the students were not super talkative nor was most of their English speaking abilities very high. For my lesson, I have created a goal for the students to still be able to use Mexican, but they are also given the opportunity to speak English. To do this, I plan to incorporate images and English words into the lesson to allow for the students to understand what is being asked. The overall goal for this lesson plan with the students is to allow them to feel welcomed and possibly bring about some of their English speaking ability. However, I have also set limits for myself to not push these students too much if they do not feel ready or comfortable to speak in English. If this is the case, I will be providing the opportunity for the students to type responses in Mexican in the chat if needed.
References
Khanam, R. (2021, March 3). Royal Commission on Bilingualism & Biculturalism [PowerPoint slides]. Google Slides. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HIDasopsJJja9n0qBS7navAQSGv6wi10/view.
Library and Archives Canada. (2017, July 31). Saskatchewan Schools and the New Canadians (1916/1922 ?) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbjzvQ3gO4M.
Sterzuk, A. (2019, October 24). The Education of the New Canadian – Saskatchewan Department of Education (1919) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SviGwu9gyuA.
Sterzuk, A. (2021, February 24). Language Planning & Policy in Saskatchewan Schools [PowerPoint slides]. Microsoft PowerPoint.