Mastering ‘schwa' is one of the major challenges that non-native speakers face when learning French as a foreign language. The present study, set within the framework of the IPFC project (“Interphonologie du Français Contemporain”), describes the schwa-coding system applied to the IPFC corpus data and is illustrated here with data from Alemannic-speaking Swiss learners of French (two tasks: text reading and guided conversation). Our results show that, even though studying abroad in a French-speaking area alone does not have a direct significant impact on schwa's behavior, it does interact with two variables: the type of task (more schwa deletion after studying abroad observed in the conversation but not in the reading task) and the type of word (more schwa deletion after studying abroad observed in monosyllabic words but not in polysyllabic words, both in word-initial or word-medial syllabic positions). In this respect, studying abroad seems to help learners achieve native-like sociolinguistic proficiency. These first results pave the way for the development of in-class pedagogical material which could help learners achieve such a level of proficiency, whether or not they have the opportunity to study abroad in a French-speaking area.