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Family finds French connection in North Vancouver

When Joanne Prest heard her son Luc say his first words she thought excitedly: it’s working! Those words were “ En Bas .
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When Joanne Prest heard her son Luc say his first words she thought excitedly: it’s working!

Those words were “En Bas.” The French phrase translates to “down” in English, but when he was learning to speak as a toddler Luc used it for both “up” and “down.”

Joanne's plan to teach her son a second language had been in motion since he was born and she was finally seeing the results. The North Vancouver mom speaks French fluently and wanted her kids to as well. She reasoned the best way to ensure that was to speak to them in French, only French, even though English is her first language. She would also only read and sing to them in French.

Growing up in southern Alberta, Joanne was part of the first French immersion class in her school, and she took to the language easily. She was fluent by upper elementary and credits great teachers, many of whom were native French speakers from Quebec, for her early success in becoming bilingual. But she also admits she always felt like a francophone in an anglophone body.  

“I just always really liked it and felt like it was a part of me,” she says of the language.

When she visited Quebec in Grade 9 as part of a class trip she had no trouble communicating, and the tour also strengthened her love of the culture.

“I love the music and all the festivals, even the dances,” she says, and notes she has tried to pass on that love of culture to her kids as well. It seems to have worked.

Now six years old, Luc is also fluent in French, as is his four-year-old brother Simon, and Joanne continues to only talk to them in French. If the boys speak to her in English she politely asks,

“Excusez-moi?” and they repeat in French. What’s interesting is they know their mom only speaks to them in French even though their dad, (North Shore News sports editor) Andy Prest, speaks to them in English. He admits he can understand his six-year-old’s French, but that’s about it for now. “He’s learning,” notes Joanne of her husband.

The boys have only noted a couple of times the fact that their parents speak to them in different languages. To them, a bilingual household is normal.

Luc and Simon used both French and English at almost the same time when they were first speaking, although Luc’s second word was also French: dehors. Not surprisingly for a North Shore kid, the word means: outside.

When it came to choosing a school for the kids, Joanne wanted to continue the family’s French connection so she enrolled the boys at École Andre-Piolat in North Vancouver. Although it’s a public school, not private, it does not fall under the North Vancouver School District but the Conseil Scolaire Francophone de la Colombie-Britannique.  

“It places more value on it for them to have friends who speak French and it seems less random,” says Joanne of why it was important for her kids to attend a francophone school instead of just speaking the language at home.

The difference between French immersion school programs and a francophone school is that there is a certain expectation of language understanding for students attending a francophone school, she explains.

Those who don’t speak the language when they start receive assistance similar to a student in the English system for whom English is not their first language. It’s rare for students at the school to not have at least one French speaker at home, usually a parent or a grandparent, notes Joanne. All instruction for all classes, as well as all activities and even parent meetings, are entirely in French. At École Andre-Piolat, students get their first taste of academic English in Grade 4 Language Arts.

Joanne says the more French became important in her life, the more she wanted to connect to the local francophone community, especially for her kids.

“I really wanted to pass that on to them, not only the language but also the parts of the culture that I really identify with and love,” she says.