Thank you very much for the question.
It's quite a complex situation, but we can use a lot of strategies.
I can start by talking a bit about the difference between the level of proficiency and the level of use of French.
Normally, it's easier to increase the use of French than the level of competence, because it takes much longer to increase the level of competence.
These are very different variables. Even though they are related, it's important to know that it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg question. On the one hand, we need to increase our level of use—our output—but on the other hand, our proficiency may be making us fear the fact that our proficiency is not perfect. Because of that fear, we may be tempted not to use our second official language, which is French in this case.
It's very important to relay the message to language users and language learners that we are not aiming for perfection. We should be embracing our errors. We should be okay with our identity as a second-language speaker. At the same time, we should be taking risks. These risks push us out of our comfort zone and help us to increase our language use without worrying too much about mistakes. We know that the more risks we take, the more our level of proficiency will increase as well.
In short, there are many other strategies, but that's something we can bring up.