Étienne live!

Coming from a family who spoke English at home, Étienne reclaimed his French language and became a crusader to ensure Canada stays a bilingual country.

The French rap performer started out as Steven Langlois, a teacher with the Greater Essex County District School Board near Windsor, Ont. He started writing and performing songs for his class but the catchy lyrics caught on with other teachers and soon Langlois became the Franco rap superstar Étienne.

"I’m very proud to be French," Langlois said. "My parents were the first in a long line of Langlois to not speak French at home. I had to regain my French. So I paid a lot of attention in school and I took French in university."

According to Statistics Canada 2006 data, more than 90 per cent of workers who use an official language at work in Ontario speak English compared to two per cent who speak French. Langlois said its common for people coming from other countries to chose English over French as their preferred working language.

"I’m trying to champion the effort to say we’re a bilingual country and we do the French too," he said.

Langlois performed a sold out show at the Fort William Gardens on Monday. More than 4,000 students from the Lakehead Public School board attended. Children held signs and rushed to meet Étienne after the show.

Skyler Spencer, 10, from Vance Champman Public School, cheered, clapped and sang along during the concert.

Skyler can speak a bit of French and said he enjoyed the song titled Francais, Francais the most and wanted to learn more French so he could sing along.

"The song reminded me of French class," Skyler said.

Diane Scocchia, a French resource teacher with Lakehead Public School, said Étienne helped in encouraging students to continue to speak French. The federal government’s Official Languages in Education Program provided the money for the concert and for other cultural events to further students’ interest in speaking both official languages.

"When children are young is when you want them to learn the second language," Scocchia said. "Students do learn faster at a younger age. This is an awesome way for people who are from French decent and don’t use the language to learn using the core French program or the French immersion program."