Try-lingual
In 1965, an interesting experiment began at St. Lambert Elementary School: French immersion. A year later, I started Kindergarten at that school, remaining in the French immersion stream until grade 7. I learned the French of my European teachers, which eventually made me very jealous of my teenage friend Natalie. She and her friends from the French high school could speak Quebecois French—beautiful French, proper French—and I couldn’t. The Montreal suburb of St. Lambert was not a natural place for an Anglophone to become skilled at proper French. This traditionally-Anglophone-now-in-transition community wasn’t changing fast enough for me; I would never have learned French on the street. Fortunately, I was young enough to learn French in school… but only just. My older brother and sister were too late for French immersion. At St. Lambert Elementary, my Kindergarten teacher spoke only French to me and my little Anglophone classmates. I can’t identify the moment at which