Being literate means many things for me.

On a basic level, it means being able to read, write, and talk in English and/or any other given language. On a greater level, being literate means expressing ideas and feelings. It means using the language to access new realities and to transform them; it means to play an active role in society and to seek to develop a better dialogue between its members. It means to persuade. To create. It means to share our ideas with others because they have value. It means believing that the language itself-any language- has value, and it does.

Allow me to stress this last point. Being a non-native English speaker, I initially felt as though the language mostly had a practical value as I was first learning it. By speaking English, I knew I had gained access to the rest of Canada and even to the major cities of the world. I found it incredibly handy for traveling and for getting by. Today, however, I consider myself fully literate in English and I feel part of the English-speaking community. The language gained value as occupied a higher status in my life.

I’ve decided to open a Blog simply because I enjoy writing and would like to do something about it. I’ve noticed that I also enjoy other people’s publications.  I want to use this space to publish both in French and English, since both languages are part of me. Spanish expressions will probably appear every now and again since this language is also beginning to be part of my life. So let’s see how it goes…

Becoming literate in both French and English meant that people had to invest their time and energy in my education. By education I mean an aunty asking me to recall the days of the week, a parent using a clay shoe model to show me how to tie my shoe laces, and a biology teacher answering my interview questions about her job description to see if it corresponds with my aspirations. My mother played a rather important role in my education, providing with extra French classes at home during the period when we were living overseas. That way, she made sure we wouldn’t fall behind while attending English-speaking schools. And it is these particular schools, or rather this particular period in my life, which brings me to the symbol I have chosen to use for this text: the dictionary.

The dictionary represents my hard efforts to learn a new language, English. I was eight years old when my family and I had just moved to Australia for a project related to my father’s profession. Hardly speaking a word of the language when I first arrived, I spoke it fluently within two years. A lot of work was required to get there and I seem to particularly remember having to endlessly flip through the pages of my dictionary to complete my homework. I would use it to translate my vocabulary into this strange new language and to look up the meaning of new words. Yes, the dictionary is an appropriate object to illustrate the big challenge I faced at that moment.

What’s so special about my object? Well, it worked for me, that’s all. Today, the traditional dictionary has been integrated into our technology: online dictionaries, Microsoft Word spelling corrector and thesaurus… These resources are useful when learning languages, they are also a great ally when language becomes more than just a necessity and plays an important role in our lives.