A previous study indicated localities in which students speak French most of the time, localities where they speak it only sometimes, and one locality between the two extremes. The study reported here was of students in three localities belonging to the groups just mentioned, namely, Cornwall, Pembroke, and North Bay. It revealed that students who communicate always or often in English (Pembroke) showed considerable delay in acquiring basic elements of French, while those who always or often communicate in French (Cornwall) were close to French-speaking students from majority or unilingual Francophone communities in acquisition of basic elements of the language. Students in North Bay generally acquired basic knowledge of French only at the end of the elementary cycle, while students in Pembroke acquired them only at the end of secondary school, if at all. Mastery of French and communication in French were revealed to be closely allied to each other. Because French-language schools in such situations include two groups of students (those for whom French is a first language and those for whom it has become a second language), programs, methods, and materials must be adapted to the variety of linguistic capacities of the Franco-Ontarian students in communities in which they are a minority. (Author/AMH)