Editor:

I am confused and disheartened by the resistance to Mandarin immersion in our public schools.

All too frequently, I hear that because Mandarin isn’t an official language, tax dollars shouldn’t be spent teaching it in our public schools. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Metro Vancouverites whose lives have been enriched from studying languages other than English and French in our high schools in recent decades. Such languages include, but are not limited to, Italian, Spanish, German, Punjabi, Japanese, Korean and yes, even Mandarin. And—shock, horror—all funded by our public tax dollars.

Heck, back when my father attended high school in Toronto, he and his peers were forced to study Latin. Not only is it not an official language, it is a dead language!

Limiting ourselves to studying our “official” languages would be a foolish and parochial decision. As Canada is isolated from most of the world by three oceans, it’s easy for us to become complacent and only learn our official languages. But why would we want to limit ourselves linguistically? Most continental Europeans speak several languages, something which gives them tremendous advantages in life. Tell an Italian that they should only be studying Italian in their tax-funded school system, and they would laugh at such insular thinking.

Additionally, the argument that our official languages have a monopoly on Canada’s “heritage” is simply incorrect. Why aren’t we teaching our country’s genuine first languages—aboriginal languages—in our public schools? Musqueam, the heritage language of Metro Vancouver, has only 50 or so speakers remaining, and there are no longer any truly fluent speakers still alive. Musqueam is perilously close to extinction, like many of Canada’s aboriginal languages. Is this situation tolerable, simply because our government has not arbitrarily deemed our aboriginal languages as “official”?

But I digress back to Mandarin. Since we already teach Mandarin in our publicly-funded school system, the actual question is whether we should be funding Mandarin immersion programs, as opposed to students simply studying Mandarin for three hours per week.

The reason that French immersion programs were initially created was because studying a language for only a few hours per week results in students with only a basic command of that language. Without immersion, students usually aren’t able to develop a firm grasp of languages until the post-secondary level or beyond.

Given that the human brain absorbs languages like a sponge in our early years, and that language learning and retention becomes increasingly difficult as we become older, it would be logical to allow students to begin learning languages with the aim of fluency in early elementary school.

So if we already recognize the value of teaching Mandarin in our public schools, and we already appreciate the effectiveness of immersion in terms of producing full fluency, then logically we should be offering Mandarin immersion programs in our public schools.

The point of a Mandarin immersion program is not to allow new immigrants from China or Taiwan to avoid having to learn English. Its rationale is to enable students who do not come from Mandarin-speaking households to graduate high school fully fluent in Mandarin. Think of it as the polar opposite of ESL programs, in which non-English-speaking immigrants can graduate from high school with a firm grasp of English.

One pertinent question is: do we want all Canadians to graduate from high school with the exact same skill set, or would it be preferable for some students to have unique abilities?

The Vancouver School Board currently offers a very popular English/Mandarin bilingual program at Jamieson Elementary, and Edmonton has had a full Mandarin immersion program in their public school system for more than 25 years. What are we so afraid of?

I am descended from English heritage, and yet my partner (who also is not Chinese) and I are both adamant that our children will learn Mandarin. Even B.C. Lions’ offensive linemen Jason Jimenez appreciates the value of Mandarin, and is studying it in his spare time.

Stop lobbing criticism at new Chinese immigrants for allegedly trying to avoid learning English and French. The proposed Mandarin immersion program shouldn’t even pertain to them. It should be intended for people who do not speak Mandarin, yet who appreciate the tremendous advantages that becoming fluent in the language would offer.

Devon Rowcliffe

Vancouver