New French language school for adults opens in Montreal

Lingua Franca—a French language school for adults—opened its doors on January 6, in downtown Montreal.

Founder Arnaud Hétu says he’s at full capacity and has already turned away 10 students.

The long provincial government waitlist is one of the reasons many of his students cited for going private.

“I also had a look at the government classes and the wait lists were extremely long,” said Srikanta Prasad, a student who came to Montreal from Bengaluru. “I have a few friends who have been waiting for almost six months now and I was not willing to do that.”

“It takes four months for an adult to enroll in a francization class in Quebec with the government,” said Arnaud Hétu, founder and director of Lingua Franca. “But in reality, what I hear all the time, it’s closer to a year when they call you back… very often they don’t call back.”

“The demand is huge right now,” he said, “there’s about 30,000 people on the waiting list to get francization courses.”

Hétu taught government francization classes for 5 years and said Lingua Franca was turned down for a public-private partnership by the Ministry of Immigration, Francization and Integration (MIFI). 

“I think we were spending like mad for this and because the government has no vision, and of course if you spend like mad without any structure behind it, you’re going to hit a wall,” he said.

In a statement, MIFI communications manager Xavier Daffe-Bordeleau, wrote: 

“MIFI relies on a well-established network of community and institutional partners, and places great importance on partnerships that meet the growing need for francization. MIFI regularly receives and analyzes new partnership requests, both public and private. The Lingua Franca school’s request for a partnership was carefully examined. After analysis, the school was informed of the MIFI’s decision and the reasons for it.”

They added that more than 37,000 people are taking French courses this week, as of January 6, 2025, that almost 150,000 students have been served in the past two years and the average wait time to start classes is about three months.

“Faced with a record and growing demand for French courses, we are currently working, in particular with the Ministry of Education, to plan our partners’ service offerings to ensure they complement each other and maximize access to services. Efforts are being made to improve Francization Quebec’s service offering. A project is underway to develop an online francization offer for beginners, enabling independent learning. New services are also being developed to meet diversified needs, such as specialized French courses with growing capacity, combining learning French with immersion in a professional context.”

MIFI says 2025 will bring even more changes and improvements to the francization program by deploying government French-language learning services and consolidating its partnerships to serve customers more quickly according to their needs.

Being a part of Quebec culture

While the students are happy to have avoided the government line by going private, they’re also eager to learn French because its how they believe they’ll truly integrate into Quebec culture.

“My only goal would be able to have an interview in French,” said Prasad, who speaks 6 languages. “I’m constantly working towards it… I know it’s it’s a it’s a slope, but I’m quite confident that I’ll make it.”

Dewayne Cameron, originally from Jamaica, is spending his second winter in Montreal. It was his first day of class.

“In order to feel like you fit in, you have to learn the language, learn about the culture, learn about everything,” said Cameron. “That’s what I wanted to do because I want to fit in… I don’t want to feel underside or left out, I want to learn so I can fit in as a Quebecer.”

He’s a sports enthusiast and was thrilled to watch his first hockey game.

“I had only watched it on TV and I went to a game for the first time, it was so amazing,” he said.

 

One of Natalia Duarte’s favorite French phrases so far is, “c’est pas pire.” She arrived from Columbia just ten days ago.

“I come from very warm weather, so it’s a bit hard [with the cold], but the safety you feel here, it’s good,” she said. “I don’t feel that in Columbia.”

“I just got here from Vancouver, at the end of November, just before the holidays, so I wanted to just jump right into it,” said Carlos Illescas.

He’s a fan of the Montreal food scene and appreciates the “friendliness and warm” vibes of the city.

“Everybody says hi to you, everybody chats and everybody wants to get to know you, which is totally different from what I’ve seen in other cities,” said Illescas.