Being BILINGUAL increases your chance of getting A JOB!

My native language is French, I am fluent in English and I also speak Spanish.

Here in Toronto, I have some experience as a French Teacher.

In this article, I want to give you four good reasons to learn and add another language to your resume/CV.

1) Let's say you are travelling, you get lost and you just need a piece of information to know your way around. You might not speak the local language, but if you speak at least English, you should be fine.

I cannot tell you the number of times I've witnessed passengers miss their flight because they could not communicate with the airport staff properly, which brought a lot of frustration.

Let's not even talk about the tension that rises when their luggage get lost by the airline company.

2) We all know that the economy was already rough before covid-19.

This pandemic just exacerbates the situation, and getting a job can be even more challenging these days.

Let's say for example that you recently moved permanently to another country. The time you find a job related to your field of studies, you are going to need money to pay for food/rent and bills right?

Let me tell you that whether it is in retail stores, banks, call centres...., employers will likely hire you because they will finally have someone bilingual in their team.

Also you will help them develop and grow the loyalty of their customers, and hence boost their sales volume.

3) When you finish school, you become what we call in the work field "a young professional/ a recent graduate/ a self-starter", and basically you might not have all the experience that is needed on your resume/CV.

However, when you are bilingual, some companies might be willing to overlook that fact and call you in for an interview ( trust me, I am speaking from experience).

If you get the job, you might even use that to your advantage to negotiate your salary.

4) As stated in introduction, I have some experience as a French Teacher here in Toronto.

The reason why I mentioned it is because teaching is a good way to make extra money when you live in a big city.

Indeed, in cities like Toronto, Montreal, Paris, London, New York, you will see a good number of people using their main job to pay for food, rent, bills...., and then getting a second gig to make some extra cash.

They will either put it towards a savings account or use it to treat themselves from time to time.

Now as a teacher, let me tell you that learning a language does not happen overnight and also give you some tips.

The same way "Rome was not built in one day", learning a foreign language requires time, patience, rigorous efforts and real investment.

That's why I never understood why these days people think they can just learn a language through an app.

If you want to really become proficient, you have to do it the old school way:

- learn the proper grammar and how to conjugate the verbs (especially the irregular ones)

- do the homework the teacher gives you ( I can't tell you how pissed I can be when my students don't do their homework. Homework help you practice what you learned in class).

- DO NOT SKIP too many classes ( I usually advise my students to schedule at least 2 classes per week so that things remain fresh in their brain)

- READ! I find it deplorable that people read less and less nowadays. Reading improves your vocabulary. You don't need to buy a big book. You can get a medium size one with a little dictionary.

- You can improve your listening skills by either finding out the lyrics of songs, or watching a movie without the subtitles (even if you have to watch it 2 or 3 times). Indeed, when you put the subtitles, you actually spend more time reading them than actually listening to what the actors are saying.

- another thing that I will do when I teach is what we call in French "la dictee". It's a situation when the teacher selects a passage of a book and read it outloud to the students and they have to write it down on a piece of paper as the teacher is progressively speaking. The teacher then collects the papers and corrects the mistakes made by student. It's a good way to improve your orthograph, grammar and listening skills.

Remember: The goal is to learn and become an expert, so don't rush!

Marie-Madeleine Mbong