話匣子英語:跨文化交流

米蘭妮從小轉學過幾次，在跨文化交流里，她是否適應這樣的生活呢。

Melanie: Well, I was born and raised in Lindsay, Ontario a few hours north of

Toronto.

Maura: So how did you end up in Montreal then?

Melanie: Well after finishing high school in Lindsay, I moved out west to Kelowna,

British Columbia where I did a college diploma in aviation and I taught

flying around British Columbia for a few years before heading back to Ontario

to Ottawa to do a degree in language, French and English literature. That

took me to France on an exchange with the University of Ottawa, where I

met my partner Christophe. Living in France was an excellent experience, a

great way learn about the culture and practice the language but tough to get

visas sometimes so I had to come back to Canada. Christophe and I decided

to both come to Montreal where we can both work and live in our first

languages.

Maura: OK, cool. So what were you doing in France?

Melanie: I went originally on an exchange with the university. So I took classes at one

of the universities in Lyon, France. There I studied with native speakers in

the literature classes there and I also at the same time taught English in a

high school.

Maura: Oh, that’s pretty cool. So how did you learn French? Just at university?

Melanie: No, in Lindsay, where I’m from. It’s funny, it’s a small town, no native French

speakers, and yet there’s a French immersion program. It started the year

before I went into school, luckily, so when I started kindergarten at the age of

5, I started in French immersion, where I spoke only French from the first day

of school. So we were all native English speakers but learning French

together.

Maura: That’s pretty cool. I’m always jealous of people who have that experience

because for me growing up, I was surrounding by people speaking English

and I went to English school and I took some French classes because no

matter, really, where you are in English-speaking Canada you have to take

French classes but it’s not an immersion program so I didn’t really learn as

much.

Melanie: Yeah, it was a really great program. We learned French from native French

speakers that came to the town to teach. We learned a lot about the

language and the French culture as well, which is really great ‘cause the

small town wasn’t very diverse. We spoke only French from kindergarten all

the way up until grade 4, was the first time we learned English. We had

about 45 minutes a day in English and then it progressed. Every year we

added a little bit more English until high school we had about 3 classes in

French, 3 classes in English.