Oldal 180 [180]
DERVILA COOKE
BILL 101, CLASSES DACCUEIL, AND THRESHOLD MOMENTS
Québec’s classes daccueil language support system was set up in 1969 and
came into widespread use after the introduction of Bill 101, la Charte de
la langue frangaise (or la loi 101), in 1977. Godbout’s film was produced,
symbolically, thirty years after the adoption of Bill 101. This law aimed to
protect the French language in the domains of work, signage and education,
and, initially, also legislation. In the domain of education, one significant
effect has been that children of immigrant extraction or from the majority
Francophone population (but not Anglophones) are obliged to attend French
school (if educated in the state system) with Montreal receivingthe bulk ofthe
immigrant students. Immigrant children and teenagers usually spend at least
ayearandahalfintheclasses d’accueil system before passing into mainstream
classes once their level of French warrants it, although sometimes they start
attending some classes in the standard stream early on, such as mathematics.
France has a similar system with the same name. In some “French schools”,
such as the Ecole Saint-Luc in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, all the students are
immigrants, while other schools have a variable mix of immigrant students
and those from the majority Francophone population.
The presence or absence of majority population students can have a major
impact on students’ experience of school and on their feelings of belonging
to Québec. In separate studies, Dawn Allen and Marilyn Steinbach have
analyzed some of the problems that can arise when established Québecers
are divided from language-learning newcomers at school.“ Allen notes that
French, and the classes d'accueilthemselves, can come to be seen as an obstacle
by immigrant students, for example holding them back for up to two years
from subjects such as science until their French is adequate. Steinbach looks
at discrimination between majority population students and newcomers,
highlighting the problem of the physical exclusion of the language learners
from the mainstream group. In Godbout’s film, we see moments of teaching
8 Annick Brabant’s 2018 précis on the Ville de Montréal website gives an outline of the system
in Québec, while Jean-Philippe Proulx’s 2015 graduate dissertation provides some more in¬
depth considerations and a series of portraits of youngsters who have been through the
system. Annick Brabant, Immigrer et s'intégrer a l’école: histoire des classes d’accueil, Ville.
Montreal.qc.ca, 24 October 2018, https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/memoiresdesmontrealais/
immigrer-et-sintegrer-lecole-lhistoire-des-classes-daccueil (accessed 15 December 2019);
Jean-Philippe Proulx, De la classe d'accueil à la classe ordinaire: Portrait du passage selon
les acteurs du monde scolaire au primaire, Masters thesis, Université de Québec à Montréal,
2015.
Dawn Allen, Who's in and Who's out: Language and the Integration of New Immigrant
Youth in Quebec, International Journal of Inclusive Education, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2006),
251-263; Marilyn Steinbach, Quand je sors d’accueil: Linguistic Integration of Immigrant
Adolescents in Quebec Secondary Schools, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol. 23, No.
2 (2010), 95-107.
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