A well-known author who taught French in School District 43 was in Port Coquitlam last week to mark International Francophone Day.
Marie-Laure Chevrier spoke with students, teachers and staff at École Des Pionniers-de-Maillardville in advance of the designated day on March 20, which celebrates the 369 million French-language speakers in the world as well as the francophone culture.
The kindergarten to Grade 12 school organized several activities for Chevrier’s visit that were based on her book Monsieur Maillardville: Un Pionnier Visionnaire (published in English as Johnny of Maillardville).
Chevrier, who taught at École Millside School in Maillardville, published the work in 2009 for the centenary of the Coquitlam neighbourhood. Last year, she also came out with an online teaching guide to Monsieur Maillardville.
Chevrier was invited to the school by Joanne Dumas, the former executive director of the Société francophone de Maillardville that runs Festival du Bois, and Chantal Fadous, the vice-chairperson of the BC Francophone school board and a trustee for the Fraser Valley.
Chevrier told the Tri-City News that she enjoyed talking to the students about Coquitlam’s French-Canadian roots and the start of French-language schools in B.C.
“They told me candidly that studying in a francophone school is important to them because they want to be able to chat with their grandparents or because they want to have better job opportunities or because they love Canada, which is a bilingual country, or even because they want to travel across Canada and all over the world,” she wrote in an email.
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