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Benefits of hiring bilingual employees.
According to the “Survey of Supervisors of Bilingual Employees” by Ipsos, 81 per cent of employers consider bilingual (English/French) employees to be a valuable asset to their company. Beyond the interpersonal skills such as flexibility, intercultural understanding and communication developed through language acquisition, bilingual employees bring economic added value. In 2016, bilinguals’ contribution to Canada’s GDP outside Quebec was 10 per cent.
Based on another study by Workopolis, Toronto is one of the top Canadian cities in which bilingual candidates have the greatest advantage.
“Parlez-vous français?”
Hiring a bilingual employee might seem to be an easy process to implement such as posting bilingual ads, conducting interviews in both languages, and assessing candidates’ level in French with written tests.
Despite all of this, your company may not have an exact “picture” of your bilingual candidates in terms of their knowledge and proficiency of the French language. Would they be able to interact with your French-speaking clients or sell your services in Quebec? Perhaps not.
In order to offer the most accurate “picture” of what the candidates are able to do, Premiere Class assesses their levels according to the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR), a tool for teaching French as a Second Language in Canada and worldwide:
A1: Beginner
A2: Elementary
B1: Intermediate
B2: Upper Intermediate
C1 : Advanced
To meet our clients’ goals and requirements, we assess the 4 skills of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. We also evaluate the written and oral interaction, skills that are both considered very valuable in working and professional environment (writing emails, talking with a colleague, etc.).
You might ask to yourself what B1 or B2 mean. As an example, a B1 user “can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken (…)”. A B2 user – which is one level up – “can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party (…)”
Hiring or training?
Premiere Class offers language skills assessments for purposes of hiring and training. We provide our clients with a description of candidates’ abilities including a report outlining the candidates’ level for each skill (listening, speaking, reading, and writing).
Once a language profile of the bilingual position is defined with CEFR levels for each skill, we design a training plan to attain the level within a certain number of hours.
Premiere Class’ assessments are conducted online and are comprised of 4 sections:
Oral expression and interaction (15 minutes)
Oral comprehension (30 minutes)
Written comprehension (45 minutes)
Written expression and interaction (60 minutes)
Our team includes experienced trainers and certified examiners and scorers.
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