University students from outside Quebec will have to achieve Level 5 French. Easier said than done?

Some are calling Quebec’s latest tuition announcement unrealistic, with the government obliging English universities to make students from outside Quebec learn French by graduation.

The move will affect students looking to attend Quebec’s three English-language universities starting in the fall of 2025.

Announced by Quebec’s higher education minister, Pascale Déry, the deal aims to address what she and the CAQ government have described as the decline of French in the province.

Reaching that level of bilingualism is something Carolyn Moore, a McGill law student from Whitby, Ont., says could be “very difficult” for some students.

Moore studied for five weeks in Trois-Pistoles Que. at Western University’s French Immersion School with the goal of reaching a passable level of bilingualism.

It’s something she says she couldn’t have achieved solely through apps like Duolingo.

“I had gone through the Ontario French curriculum,” said Moore. “But then it had been six years since I had even tried to speak French.”

With the help of the summer program, she says the ability to reach a Level 5 proficiency was “more than doable,” but for students who don’t have the opportunity to practise in an immersive environment, she thinks hitting that level of bilingualism will be tricky.

“I’ve been in Montreal now since September and I’m even taking two courses in French at the moment and I don’t feel like my French has improved at all being in Montreal because there’s a lot of English around,” said Moore.

“You can get by going to restaurants [and] ordering in English. People will talk to you in English. So there aren’t a lot of opportunities.”

Breaking down Quebec’s revised tuition plan and what key players are saying

While the province is reducing its tuition hike for out-of-province Canadian students, it’s adding a French requirement that one university is calling ‘devastating.’

What is Level 5 French?

Quebec’s language proficiency scale goes up to 12 levels, with Level 5 the start of the intermediate level.

According to Quebec’s guide on competence levels in French, at oral Level 5 comprehension, an individual understands varied vocabulary and the gist of conversations on everyday topics.

Taylor Ireland, president and general director of ACA-Formation Linguistique, a French language school in Quebec City, says by the end of their studies, students might be expected to answer a series of straightforward questions.

“Like, tell me what you did today. Tell me what you did yesterday. What are your plans tomorrow? Things that are going to be relatively factual,” said Ireland.

“Is it to say that we can discuss, you know, philosophical items and theory and have debates? We’re not going to be at that level.”

Becoming bilingual

Ireland says the Level 5 proficiency is something that most students should be able to achieve over the course of four years, but that will depend on their starting level and it will take commitment on the part of the university.

“On a micro level for an individual learner to say ‘hey you need to get to a Level 5,’ that’s a realistic proposition over a couple years. What I think the challenge comes for the universities is how do you do this at scale,” said Ireland.

“Most definitely it will be kind of like adding another class a week probably to their schedules on top of their workload.”

He says in order to reach a fluent level, students need opportunities to practise.

“You’re probably looking at hundreds of hours to get to that point, maybe say 300–400 hours,” said Ireland. “We’re probably looking at several months of intensive training.”

Ireland says he reached a Level 5 proficiency in French six months to a year after moving to Quebec City.

“I was in kind of full-time French [mode],” said Ireland.

“I’d speak with everyone at the grocery store, you know, try and just use one more sentence every week. Learn a couple words every week.”

Moore agrees that an immersive environment is the most effective way to learn to hold a conversation in French.

Although she sees learning the language as an opportunity and a pathway to future employment in Quebec after she graduates, she says this requirement is “a little bit lofty” and will absolutely influence some people’s decision to study in Quebec.

She points out that people come from “all sorts of backgrounds,” many already speak several languages, some may be new immigrants who are struggling to adapt.

While she thinks it’s probably in most people’s best interest to learn French, “for some it’ll be a motivator and for some it will be something that discourages them from coming.”

Quebec reduces tuition hike for out-of-province students, adds French requirement

The Quebec government has reduced its planned tuition hike for out-of-province students and added a new French requirement for those studying at an English-language university.

‘These measures are bad for Quebec,’ says head of Bishop’s

Although Bishop’s students will be asked to meet the proficiency level by the end of their studies, unlike McGill and Concordia, the Eastern Townships institution’s government funding will not be directly tied to hitting that mark.

Bishop’s will also have some exemption from the new tuition increases.

But Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, the principal and vice-chancellor of the Bishop’s, says he is concerned for McGill and Concordia.

As of next fall they will have to charge new Canadian students from outside the province a minimum of $12,000 in tuition — an increase over the $8,992 they currently pay, but a step back from the $17,000 that the Quebec government initially had in mind.

“These measures are bad for Quebec. I think that there were other ways to reach the government’s objectives,” said Lebel-Grenier.

“We are not against the objective of supporting and promoting the vitality of the French language, certainly not, but we feel that the measures that have been proposed or that have been taken are not appropriate for Quebec.”

On Thursday McGill University’s president and vice-chancellor, Deep Saini, called on the government to backtrack. He said teaching French to 80 per cent of out-of-province undergraduates “is totally unrealistic, both technically and academically.”

How realistic is Quebec’s new French language requirement for university students?

The Quebec government says it wants 80 per cent of non-Quebec university students to learn French. But how feasible is that?