Post-secondary students who speak French as a first or second language or have a special interest in French language and culture, have a new community of their own at Memorial University.

Student Residences and Continuous, Adult, and Lifelong Learning (CALL) at Memorial, in partnership with Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador (FFTNL) and College of the North Atlantic (CNA) officially opened the Francophone Living and Learning Community (LLC) on Oct. 25.

The Francophone Living and Learning Community began in September and student participation increased at each event, with the crowd favourite being French karaoke night.

In addition to themed programming, such as French cooking classes, film nights and discussions on Francophone literature and history, the community offers something meaningful to students.

The missing piece

Kenny Rambolamanana is in his fifth year of mechanical engineering at Memorial.

He moved from his home country of Gabon to St. John’s, N.L., and is currently living in student residences.

Although he has been enjoying his time in this province, one thing was missing.

“I had rarely spoken French here, in person, mostly just on the phone with my family,” he said. “At the first meet and greet, the students all bonded right away! French is what we have in common. In the past two months, I’ve spoken more French than in the past few years. When we reflected on what we like about the LLC, I said, ‘It feels like home.’”

Mr. Rambolamanana is the Francophone Living and Learning Community program co-ordinator.

He says it has helped him not only maintain but expand his French competency.

“Typing program proposals, completing administrative tasks, writing professional emails – it’s a more formal French than I am used to, and has been a great learning experience.”

Nicole Erikson is studying ocean and naval architectural engineering at Memorial.

She completed the French immersion program, starting in kindergarten, when she was growing up in Vancouver, B.C.

She first heard about the Francophone Living and Learning Community through her role as a residence advisor at Cluett Hall.

“I was a co-ordinator for the engineering Living and Learning Community Program. I was excited that there was going to be a community for French here at Memorial, as well,” she said. “I’m getting the language back and also getting to know people on a different level through our interests.”

Collaborative efforts

The Francophone Living and Learning Community is the first concrete achievement in post-secondary education and continuing education in French in Newfoundland and Labrador, aimed at post-secondary students.

Memorial, CNA, the FFTNL and eight other francophone associations worked on the initiative in collaboration since January 2023.

Dr. Ailsa Craig, special advisor to the president on continuing education at Memorial, believes that the Living and Learning Community is a great opportunity for students to maintain their French while completing their program.

“We have to make sure that we build sustainable programming that will help increase the range of options for people to be able to attend Memorial and also maintain their French,” said Dr. Craig. “We have a lot of people who speak French in this province, but leave so they don’t lose their French. It’s not necessary.”

A sense of belonging

There are also positive implications for the future of Newfoundland and Labrador as the Living and Learning Community increases the sense of belonging for francophones and French-speaking students.

“This is the kind of publicly engaged work and collaboration that can really make things vibrant in our communities,” Dr. Craig said. “This opportunity can lead to immigration retention and feeds into stronger economic outputs, both educationally and culturally.”

Étienne Vuillaume was involved in this project as the co-ordinator for development of post-secondary and continuing education in French with the FFTNL.

Seeing the proposal for the Living and Learning Community come to life has been an achievement worth the wait.

“I’m proud of this team work from all of our partners,” said Mr. Vuillaume. “Our team met monthly for a year and put together a business plan and one of the ideas was this LLC. The idea moving forward is to improve all aspects of French learning in education, continuing education, professional development, internships and international experiences. This is a dream come true. We have been waiting for this for a long time in our province.”

For students interested in learning more or joining the Francophone LLC, more information is here.