Federal bilingualism demands too high for some

[CHIMO]

OTTAWA - The federal government can't meet its own demands for bilingual employees because the language requirements are too high, documents obtained by the CBC show.

About 40 per cent of federal public service jobs are classified as bilingual, which requires the successful candidate to pass a demanding three-part language exam testing them on reading comprehension, written grammar and oral fluency.

Statistics from the Public Service Commission show that about half of those who take the oral tests at the B and C levels are failing them. (C is the highest of three levels.)

In April, the government announced it would no longer hire otherwise qualified unilingual people and train them in the second language.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/10/05/bilingualism041005.html

[Maple]

1. Wimps.

Same old conservative excuse...we`re too stupid to be able to speak 2 languages.

[CHIMO]

2. Speak For Yourself

How about three or four or more. It expands ones' mind.
However, thems the facts and as much as one would like others to become subservient, the facts remain the facts.
If you are going to loose your house and everything because you do not have the correct accent or facility in your work and there is no help then guess what will happen.
One plus one always equals two.

[hermetic]

3. The real issue here, IMO

is this line from the article "He believes that the exam should be focused on the ability to function in the language rather than how well the applicant can pass a grammar test." Does one have to pass a written English grammer test as well? If that was required at all jobs maybe 10% of the population would be employable. Any country, any language.

[Interrobang]

4. I think I agree with you...

I can get around in three or four languages now, depending on what's required, and I don't think I could pass those high-level tests. Then again, it's been 10 years since I've really conjugated any French verbs beyond the basics, and 5 years since I last studied French (I'm doing Hebrew now) so maybe that has something to do with it.

OTOH, if I *had* to be able to speak French very well to keep my job, I'd be in French immersion or something... :)

[iverglas]

6. I think I agree with you ;)

I work in both English and French. I train and supervise people in what amounts to writing English, for the govt, from time to time. Last week, I was supposed to testify at an internal govt tribunal as an "expert" in, um, English. Unfortunately, I think the party that had retained me (a wise choice, since I've also worked for the other party!) decided that my written report didn't actually help their case and didn't call me after all; hire a pedant, and the pedant will find something wrong with everything. ;)

A couple of years ago, a neighbour got me to help him prepare for his "C" level French test. ("C" is the highest level of "A", "B" and "C", of course ...). I was just about stumped by a couple of the questions -- and they were multiple choice. I'm pretty sure that virtually all of the francophones in the govt. whom I work with, other than pedantic francophone counterparts of moi, would have been too.

There should maybe be a "D" level (and hey, then wouldn't it be lucky that they'd started from A and worked backwards!). The "C" level would be full functionality, and the "D" level would be the equivalent to an extremely/technically literate native speaker level.

I'd be a "D+" in English (you won't catch me saying "if" when I mean "whether"), and about a "B" in Spanish (and below "A" in German, Russian and Farsi, although I could still probably leave a coherent phone message). I'd then be a "C" in French -- I can read/understand anything and say/write anything correctly, and almost always recognize the right answers to obscure questions when I see 'em, but I might not be able to dredge 'em up from memory all by myself on the spur of the moment. And I don't think that there are all that many jobs in the public service that require more than that level in either language.

[HEyHEY]

5. Out West (mostly BC) they should be required to speak Cantonese

As well, that should be the manditory language in schools.

[HEyHEY]

7. I mean manditory second language