French hip-hop event brings together about 800 Moncton-area high school students

Cash Allen got a chance to sharpen his French language skills by singing along with hip-hop artistsat a concert this week.

A Grade 12 student at Salisbury Regional School,his class took part in a unique learning experiencewith about 800 others from across the Anglophone East school districton Wednesday.

The high school studentsgathered at the Universit de MonctonCEPS building to enjoy a concert ofhip-hop artists, sponsored by the school district, Centre of Excellence for Language Learning, Parents for Bilingual Education, Universit de Moncton, Immersart, Club 6-12 and the Town of Salisbury.

The students jumped to the beats, waved their phones with flashlights on and sang along to French rap songsas artists Missy D, Petip and Leflofrancoperformed.

"It's such an easy way to learn French when it's in a song," said Allen.

"French music is awesome, and it's really, like, interesting to listen to when you actually listen to the lyrics ... it just makes so much sense."

WATCH | 'An easy way to learn French':

Learning through hip-hop: More than 800 N.B. students take in francophone concert

10 days ago

Duration 3:21

Hundreds of high school students from across the Anglophone East school district danced to three French hip-hop artists a way to experience the French language outside the classroom.

Leflofrancohas visited Allen's school a couple of times in the past, but watching him on the big stage felt different, Allensaid.

"Usually he just does it on a bench from our school, but with an actual stage setup and all the lights and the really big speakers it was amazing and definitely a great turnout."

The Ottawa artist, who is currently touring the east coast, was the third performerat the event, and his songs about love, hope and mental health boosted the room's energy.

"Today we lived a cultural linguistic moment," Leflofranco said.

"There's no language barriers. We got music, we got francophones, we got francophiles, we got anglophones all in one room. Everybody's singing, the hands are up, the cheers, the dancing, the jumping, all for the francophone language."

He said this type of an event will help students dig deeper into the language by understanding the meaningof lyrics, learning the artists' backgrounds and exploring their music catalogs.

Finley Short, another Grade 12 student at Salisbury Regional School was on thestage to introduce Leflofranco.

She said she felt honoured to have the opportunity and was actively involved in promoting the event to the students.

"I really hope that schools continue to do this even over the province, or the country, because it gets people out of classes and learning in a different way," she said.

"It really helps your mental health to like, come out and be in a different environment. You can meet new people and experience different cultures. So I think that's really important to get hands-on learning instead of just in the class, writing on a piece of paper."

Short's teacher, Hannah Davidson, said the event exceeded her expectations.

Davidson said sometimes students "lose sight" of why they are learning a new language and experiences like these will help them understand why it is fun to learn French.

"I'm two or three years away from retirement and I would say this is a dream come true."