In order to boost the linguistic and cultural integration of migrants to Québec, the province’s Ministry of Immigration, Diversity, and Inclusion (MIDI) draws on a network of teachers who are specially trained for this mission. These teachers can work in various types of institutions, in particular in Cégeps (post-high school general and vocational colleges). The Cégep de Sherbrooke is particularly involved in this social mission.

As part of this, we spent Tuesday the 9th October 2018 in the company of 10 specialists in teaching French to adult immigrants (in which context French is referred to as the language of integration). Some of these teachers are facing the greatest challenge of their career: to teach their language to groups of refugees, often unschooled in their country of origin, whose health, sadly, is sometimes so damaged that they are difficult to reach on the cognitive level.

In the course of an entire day devoted to presenting the neurolinguistic approach, we were able to speak frankly with these teachers about these issues, as well as about the positive change in perspective that a pedagogy based on the NLA’s five principles might give them. Many of the participants expressed a wish to join us the following 18th December in Québec City during our next NLA1 initial training session. One teacher in this group even told us, at the end of the day, that our presentation had renewed her inspiration and her enthusiasm for a social mission that is crucial for our society’s cohesion.

MIDI francisation site for the Sherbrooke region (French only): https://www.cegepsherbrooke.qc.ca/fr/futurs-etudiants/etudiants-internationaux/francisation

Steeve Mercier