Annual French for the Future Conference Set for Face School on April 6

Aimed at promoting bilingualism amongst Canadian youth, the theme of the annual French for The Future Conference is Respect, Culture and Integration into Québécois Society. Approximately 500 students from 10 Montreal high schools from three school boards and three Jewish day schools will be present. Charismatic Montreal comedian Dorothy Rhau will serve as master of ceremonies.   

FACE is the only school jointly run by the English Montreal School Board and the Commission Scolaire de Montréal, making it a logical choice to host this conference.

There will be a musical performance by the group NBGN, starring RACCOON and a special presentation by Maude Morisette, a comedian and the creator of the award winning web series La Dump/The Dump. It is described as South Park meets Sesame Street with cheeky, edgy puppets who live in the sewers. They’re not clean, not polite and fairly inappropriate. The short efficient sketches are considered “absurd, fast-paced and funny.” The premise of this interactive comedy series revolves around a character named Beauty, a former small town pageant winner who is compulsive, naïve and has the voice of an old smoker. She eats whatever she finds: Q-tips, rocks, screws, paper. Everything except gluten! Her lover Beard, President Donald Trump’s illegitimate son, is the male with no alpha. He's a strange mix between a Viking, a pirate, a cowboy, a Scot and he always carries a gun. He's not to be messed with. The dysfunctional but endearing couple got kicked out of the US for public disorder and are now wandering in Canada’s undergrounds with their crazy friends the No-Faced Fairy, Dead Grandma, the Mute Smoker, the Newsreader and the Senile Dictator.

Also featured will be a French for the Future version of TVA’s La Voix (the French-language answer to NBC’s The Voice). Three contestants from the Anglophone community, Mike Valletta, David Marino and Hanorah and a fourth, 2015 finalist Angelike Falbo, will share their experience and then place their chairs facing away from the stage as student singers perform for them. Like the TV show, Valletta, Marino, Hanorah and Angelike will only hear their voices and turn around if they want them on their team.

Other activities will include an interactive quiz on Canadian and Quebec culture, a francophone youth contemporary and hip hop dance group, OR PUR, from the Urban Element Zone Studio, and a much anticipated interactive finale starring the always entertaining Ligue D’improvisation Montréalaise. The event will conclude with some exciting prizes presented by local sponsors (Bureau en gros, HMV, EMPIRE, Renaud Bray etc.).

The wide variety of programs allowing students to be immersed in the French language over the course of an entire day will undoubtedly allow them to feel proud of being bilingual, and also it will strengthen their connection to the Québécois culture that surrounds them on a daily basis. For more details log on to french-future.org.

Participating schools are: Westmount High School, Royal West Academy in Montreal West, Royal Vale in NDG, John F. Kennedy High School in St. Michel and FACE from the English Montreal School Board (EMSB); Macdonald High School in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Lakeside Academy in Lachine, Lindsay Place in Pointe Claire from the Lester B. Pearson School Board;  Howard S. Billings High School in Chateauguay from the New Frontiers School Board;  and three Jewish high schools – Bialik, Herzliah and Hebrew Academy.

For more details log on to french-future.org.