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Free Classroom Poster: French-speaking Countries of the World
14 April 2020
When you’re a French teacher, it’s always nice to be able to tell your students how many countries speak French, and how far the language could take them.
Whether your older students have ambitions to study abroad, or you want to fire up the imaginations of primary school pupils, it’s important to demonstrate how globally useful their French lessons could be.
Around 300 million global French speakers
Partly as a result of its colonial past, French is the sixth most widely spoken language in the world. While the largest number of native French speakers live in France, around half of all native French speakers live in Africa.
After English, French is also the second most studied language in the world. So your students are in very good company.
Which countries speak French as their national language?
Well, from France itself to parts of Canada, Africa, and Oceania, a total of 29 countries are officially Francophone. Of these, 13 officially speak just French, while 16 have other official languages too. For example, Belgium has French, Dutch, and German as official languages, depending on where you are in the country.
France also has five overseas departments (département et régions d’outre-mer or DROM). These are dotted across South America, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, but still use the Euro as their currency, and are members of the European Union. They mostly have the same status as other metropolitan departments of France like Paris and Loire – except they’re thousands of miles away!
Download your free classroom poster today
As a handy resource for French teachers, we’ve created a map of French-speaking countries in the world. So you can print it off, put it on the wall in your classroom, and use it to inspire the next generation of travellers, adventurers, and multilingual workers.
