By Alannah MacGregor
Early in 2025 I set a goal for the programming side of my position here at the Museum of Lennox and Addington. I was going to offer at least one school program in French this year. This goal had been on my mind for a couple years and I was eager to take on the challenge.
I fell in love with the French language early on in life and I was excited to bring it to our school groups, however there were a few challenges ahead. The biggest challenge was that that despite over 12 years of French immersion education here in Lennox and Addington County, it has been a long time since I last had to conjugate a French verb or roll an ‘r’. At some mysterious point in time that bilingual certificate flew right out the window. Luckily, I found a fantastic organization just one town over called La Route du Savoir which ran conversational French lessons twice a week, in person. This offered me a great opportunity to kickstart my re-introduction to French.
As one might expect as I walked into “Le Centre Culturel Frontenac” the few remaining words I knew in French suddenly vanished from my head. I started feeling distinctly worried when someone casually greeted me with a “Bonsoir” and my reaction was to establish very a low bar and reply in English “…hello”. Fortunately, there’s only one place to go from an awkward rock bottom and that is up. The first step upward was meeting everyone in the evening class, we were definitely an eclectic group, some like me had once spoke French and were trying to regain it, others were from around the world and working on their third or fourth language, and one seemingly was there to find out what his French in laws were saying about him at family get togethers. The next step in the right direction was our instructor Victoria who’s direct yet encouraging teaching style created clarity on French rules I hadn’t understood at any point in my previous French education. When do you use ‘du’ vs ‘de la’? I know the answer now! By the third class a lot of that forgotten knowledge was returning, I found I was having no trouble conversing at all. By the end of course my biggest trouble was actually slowing down my speech so I could make sure I was applying all the rules I now understood. Everything was going according to plan.
Now that week five had passed and the course was over, I had a school program to design. I decided our autumn kindergarten to grade 2 program would be a good place to start. This program would feature our fun new photography exhibit “Through the Lens; Wild Souls” created by Becky Hinch and Michelle Trotter. This was a fun program where students got to make their own nature crown, play exhibit charades, and learn about the cycle of growing plants and seed distribution. The program would be offered in both French and English through September and the beginning of October.
I was over the moon excited when I heard from one of our local French immersion classes that they wanted to come for the program, and yes, they would like it in French. Finally, it’s show time. I spent the couple weeks leading up to their visit writing and grammar checking the translation of what I would usually say to our English classes, getting used to saying it with confidence followed by the English translation, so students had the benefit of both. When all is said and done, I’d estimate about 50% of what was spoken was in French, the other half being the translation for the kindergarten students new to French. Phew, mission accomplished. However, now that I’ve got my French reasonably back on track, I’m hoping to offer another school program in French in 2026, ideally for one of our older grades. I am also hoping that word of mouth will get out about the French program, and we might get a few more groups signed up for the next one to come.
I think the only question left to answer is why? Why put all this effort into creating French school programs? Why do 20+ hours of night school? Why does this matter?
Because, in 2023 our museum team worked many hours coming up with a strategic plan we could move forward with for the next three years and our actions, decisions, and goals are guided by this plan. Personally, I refer back to the museum values section of the plan more than anything else. We value respect, trust, learning, collaboration, and most importantly to this blog: belonging. To me, offering a program in French was a way of telling our French, and French immersion classes that they belong at the museum too. That we also value them and the language they cherish and work so hard to learn and preserve. Belonging matters, and it makes me so happy to see our whole museum team continuing to work toward the values we set out.
