Children arriving in France from abroad have to get enrolled in a French school in order to learn French and other school subjects. Within the school a special class has been set up for these new comers to learn French as a foreign language. It is called “CLIN” and these pupils spend more than 10 hours in this class per week. The aim of this research work is to study the French (as a foreign) language learning by these foreigner pupils, particularly, the classroom learning and the outside-of-the-class learning. That involves two learning “zones”; informal and formal. The research is based on three main theorical approaches which imply sociology, language pedagogy and social interactionism. The results obtained embed elements of the approaches mentioned above. Data analysis was done and divided into three categories. The first one is about the sociological aspect of the research. It sheds light on the construction and development of the pupils’ social networks. Two types of social network emerge from the results; the chosen social network and the imposed social network. Whatever the network, learning of the French language is done differently. The second one is about learning French in classroom through the communicative language teaching. Studies show that the pupils’ speeches contain French standard linguistic forms as well as French linguistic gap-forms. The third one is about the informal language learning through everyday communication. Results reveal that the linguistic aspect is overshadowed by the communicative and interactional urge throughout the pupils’ discussions. Non-standard linguistic forms are often considered within these exchanges. Finally, the present research work outlines the sociological aspect that needs to be strongly considered when one is learning French as a foreign language (especially the foreign pupils in France) in the school environment. This research also helps to have a better understanding of the “behind the learning scenes” of language immersion in school contexts
