Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee – The Future of a....(ESSAY)

[GO!!!]

You do realise that you can set MS Word for Canadian English.

I do, but I'm using Corel Wordperfect, and everything is different. I'm installing MS Office today.

Daniel San,

I recognise a requirement for CF officers to be bilingual, but I believe that only one of the official languages should be mandatory, and that the other language should be an operationally useful one.

Your statement that learning english is just as difficult for francos as vice versa is a little weak. In nearly all of Canada, English is the language of business, pleasure and work. People that speak french generally speak french at home and english out of it. As we all know, immersion is the most effective method of learning any language, so french canadians have the benefit of being immersed in both languages from a young age. The rest of canadians must invest significant sums of time, money and effort to learn french, when it is a language in decline on the world stage, and not used in many of the nations we must do business in the future with, or make war against.

Training our officers to achieve a CCC profile in Pashto would be far more effective than french, for the forseeable future.

 

[prom]

GO!!!

That was in no way directed at you. That was directed squarely to the shoulders of Rory as my quote of him saying that it is an American program and its a different dialect.

 

[Rory]

Thats true, but it wasn't stated that they had it on our dialect. Anywho back to GO's paper. I really hope we see a few more papers on here like this one, they are a really good read, hope that prof wants more out of ya soon. 

 

[GO!!!]

Thats true, but it wasn't stated that they had it on our dialect. Anywho back to GO's paper. I really hope we see a few more papers on here like this one, they are a really good read, hope that prof wants more out of ya soon. 

March  and I have'nt even started!

 

[sheikyerbouti]

Go:
you reference to writing provocatively explains the inflammatory remarks about French but such an idea would never pass muster with any Fed. The language requirement should be fully enforced but it should be noted that any operational requirements for additional language skills be identified through recruitment in the short term and possibly a CF language school for identified long term languages ie:Modern Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Korean, etc.

To expand on the recruit idea, with Canada such a multicultural environment shouldn't we be able to easily procure recruits with said skills. IMHO it is exemplary of the recruiting system but also representative of existing cultural barriers. As a joke recently, the Premier of NFL. said that a quarter of the forces must be Newf's (I am paraphrasing). Look at how multicultural cadets are, and see how poorly they represent current recruits as another example.

Must be a year long class to have  a paper so soon, good luck.

 

[3rd Herd]

Go:
you reference to writing provocatively explains the inflammatory remarks about French but such an idea would never pass muster with any Fed.

I happen to agree with GO!!! as do several noted authors and journalists that the second language criteria is ham stringing the Canadian Forces especially at the senior officer level. A prime example of rewriting the terms of the Quebec Act can be found in the fiasco in selecting an officer to command the Airborne Regt. in 1995. As to GO!!!'s assertion of English being the language of business etc in Canada he should of gone one step further with English is the language of business and science in the world. Yes there are a billion Cantonese/Mandarin speakers but the ones with money are paying to have their sons/daughters learn English. As with many other nations if it were not so then we would not have the amount of international students we do in both the pre and post secondary education system.

 

[Journeyman]

I'm installing MS Office today.

I hope you didn't break a nail being dragged into our century. 

Several threads have mentioned academic upgrading. Pretty soon, we're going to be reading "well...perhaps there are other interpretations of that data, or maybe your comment stems from your inadequate qualifications"........... rather than "bullshit, you poser!"  ;D

Giddy-up! An educated army fights smarter

(Standard caveat: this implies a balance between physical and mental development of warfighting skills!)

 

[sheikyerbouti]

Hey 3rd'y,

I stated in an earlier post that I fully supported the requirement of both official languages, but only if it didn't impede operational requirements.

It seems to me in a 8-20 plus year career that an officer might have enough time  to learn a second language.Off the top of my head, 6 months of structured training should be adequate for demonstrating proficiency.

As an alternative I suggested that recruitment efforts target Canadians with the necessary background in desired languages. For long term planning it makes more sense to teach a Young officer or NCO than someone with more time in. This polyglot officer, in turn, holds that knowledge for longer than recruiting some By' from 'Cantoo and Didsoe' to learn both official languages, as well as any new ones.

In terms of the language debate, Soldiers need to get a grip and learn more than 2 languages anyways. More and more people nowadays are learning third, fourth, or even fifth languages. With increased global participation, there is an increased need for languages in  common. Increasingly this has become the domain of English, but the Chinese tongue for example, is growing in South Asia simply due to China's economic impact on the continent. Regionally, there certainly are dominant tongues, but is it necessary for us to learn them all?  French, of course, still remains viable as notable distresses are ongoing in countries of "La Francophonie" like Haiti or Cote D'Ivoire.

Learning Pashto for the next decade or so will be useful of course, but what happens when the conflict moves elsewhere? Should we just teach everyone Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi,  or whatever else? Reacting to shifting circumstances on the ground is easier when there is an established framework to work from (ie:a CF centre of linguistic excellence).

Having an organic language base is more important than some gripes about individuals having an issue learning how to speak to their Co-workers let alone communicating with foreigners and interrogating detainees.

 

[Synthos]

If you're about to go on tour with co-workers whose language you haven't yet learned it's a little late to cram french/english.

In my experience most all francophones I've met know a decent amount of english, because so many jobs involve interacting with the linguistic majority. I myself took french immersion in high school. The experience became sour because of the people in the class screwing around the whole time, but that's a different issue. My french vocabulary is limited, but most of the grammar is tucked away in my mind somewhere. If you feel the need to learn french to be able to communicate there are many ways to learn.

This sense that people worthy of the job should be getting it not just biligualists seems similar to how some people complain employers hire a disporportionate amount of visible minorities (blacks) instead of the qualified. However, we shouldn't ever think of french speaking Canadians as a visible minority, that's not what we want. That's partly the source of Quebec's feeling of isolation from the rest of Canada. That's partly the source of Quebec's seperatism movement.

This post has no direction  or flow to it... so i'll stop

 

[M Feetham]

I like the essay, it brings up a lot of good points. I especially like the language issue. I don't think that anyone should be held back just because they are not fluent in french, however you automatically get PER points if you have a french profile. It would be  nice to see that pointage applied to anyone with any language skills. We have a large number of personnel in the forces who speak not just two, but several languages fluently. What do they get out of it. As an add on, you also get points if you are french and have an english profile.
Thanks a lot
Marc Feetham