An Aberration?… Je ne vous le fais pas dire!!!

Today I had planned to publish another «jeu linguistique», yet something happened and I cannot wait until the weekend to share this story with you…

Actually this story is almost unbelievable! Useless to say that it gives another dimension to the SLE testing process within the Public Service of Canada. Fasten your seat belts because you will be in shock after having read this!

At the very end of January, Luna had found my site when desperately looking for some help with her French. At the time, she had been scheduled to take both reading comprehension and written expression tests… and of course, she knew that eventually she would have to take the oral interaction exam as well. Although her French was rusty, she was not a beginner… all she needed was to refresh some grammar notions before writing.

Luna used to work for a Federal Department in Toronto but, when she moved to Montreal to follow her husband, she went on a year leave of absence until the end of August 2009. Of course no one working in Montreal has the luxury of not being able to communicate in French… and certainly not for her Department which is dealing with the public all the time. The fact that they did not send her on fulltime FSL training during that year is beyond me!… In Ottawa, as soon as the language requirements of a position change, the employee is forced to go in a boot camp for an extended period of time. I guess that, in Toronto, the mere idea of needing French seems more or less foolish… anyways… that option was not given to Luna when she moved. She was simply told that she would get back her position as soon as she would have her BBB and her deadline was the end of August 2009.

She applied for several positions in different departments this past year yet her ultimate goal was to get the same position she had in Toronto, but in Montreal. Or course, all the positions she ever applied for were either BBB (and higher) or French Essential. By the end of March, she had her level B in both reading comprehension and written expression. After two attempts at the oral test (one time cold turkey and another time after five hours of practice), she ended up with an A… although the second time, the assessor judged that she was good enough to be taken in the fourth part of the exam (which is for a level C). According to the SLE tests designed by the PPC so-called panel of experts, here is the description of what Luna can do in French:

Written comprehension in the second official language, proficiency level B

A person reading at this level can:

• grasp the main idea of most work-related texts
• identify specific details
• distinguish main from subsidiary ideas

A person at this level will have difficulty reading texts using complex grammar and less common vocabulary.

Written expression in the second official language, proficiency level B

A person writing at this level can:

• deal with explicit information on work-related topics since they have sufficient mastery of grammar and vocabulary

A person at this level will communicate the basic information, but the text will require some corrections in grammar and vocabulary as well as revision for style.

Oral proficiency in the second official language – level A

A person speaking at this level can:

• ask and answer simple questions
• give simple instructions
• give uncomplicated directions relating to routine work situations

People at this level make many errors and have deficiencies in grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and fluency, which may interfere with the clarity of the message. Since they may have problems understanding speech spoken at a normal rate, repetitions by others may be required for them to understand what is being said. In other words, someone at this level can problably only exchange common courtesy formulas!

This is, roughly, Luna’ profile in French provided by the PSC…  Lately she has been offered several French essential positions (those are the equivalent of English essential positions where there are no language requirements regarding the second official language). Of course, she declined them all except for one… Since she had nothing to lose, why not give it a try?

Amazingly, all of those Departments had Luna’s language profile yet they did not hesitate to offer her French essential positions!… When she finally accepted to go for an interview, she was told she would have to take in-house exams to assess her French. I thought it was very interesting… apparently, in Montreal, they do not rely on any SLE testing results provided by the PSC when they need someone who will have to use French.

On Monday, courageous Luna went for those in-house tests where there were two people to evaluate her competencies in French… Afterwards she wrote me an email describing what she had gone through. The exam lasted about one hour and was divided in three parts. In the first part, she was given three questions and five minutes to prepare for one… she chose to talk about her last job as an acting manager and had to speak for five minutes. In the second part, she had to intepret a government document and speak about it (she thought this part was really tough!). In the third part, she was asked to write about a few topics… since she did not want to make too many mistakes, she decided to write only one paragraph.

Her overall impression was that this exam was hard for her. Yet she truly believes that it is probably easier for someone who is bilingual (like Alicia and Christie for instance) to get a French essential job than to get a C or an E rating via the official SLE process. Anyways… she ended her message saying that, according to what had happened during the exam, she knew that she could not do a French essential position. Of course, this impression was influenced by the outcome of her oral testing through the official channel.

Well… guess what?… Luna got the job!!!… Then… tell me… how come someone, with the language profile described above, has been selected to work in a French essential position in Montreal?… I do know the answer, do you?… It is because during this in-house interview, Luna has been evaluated upon her communication abilities in French rather than upon the number of «mots-liens» she used… or the number of subjunctive and conditional tenses she threw on the table… Quite a good performance for someone who was given an A three weeks ago!… She still wants her position back with her original Department, this is why she will move on trying and getting the B she needs before September. Nevertheless this experience was a real boost for her… now she knows that she is much better in French than what the letter on a sheet of paper says!

Therefore I want to reassure all of my students who went for the oral test and did not get the level they knew they should have received… As I wrote several times, the SLE tests do not reflect someone’s competencies in French. And… when the same Departments located in the province of Quebec judge necessary to have their own set of testing tools to evaluate candidates who will have to use French almost 100% of the time, it certainly proves the aberration of the current PSC SLE testing system.

“On se fait toujours des idées exagérées de ce qu’on ne connaît pas”

Albert Camus