“En français, s’il vous plait”: Challenges to French language use among international students in Montreal
With the acceleration of international academic mobility, an increasing number of international students settle in a foreign city to pursue an academic degree. Such an experience comes with many challenges, be they economic, social, cultural, or linguistic. This study, conducted in a Canadian context, is specifically interested in the linguistic challenges international students faced outside the campus. The qualitative analysis of reflexive journals and focus groups carried out with 19 allophone and anglophone participants learning French at a Montreal university indicates that the main challenges to the use of French in the local community stem in the sociolinguistic characteristics of an environment characterized by French-English bilingualism and linguistic variation, combined with linguistic insecurities.