An experiment exploring the use of a single phonological variable in standard French by advanced American speakers of French who teach beginning college-level French classes is reported. Seven graduate instructors' use of the variable was examined in directed interviews with a native speaker and in the reading of sentences containing instances of the variable. In addition, the subjects were asked to identify deviant forms and to evaluate their own pronunciation. The findings show that the teachers used the preferred pronunciation in the more formal sentence recitation but did not identify the deviant phoneme in most cases. Overall, the results suggest that these teachers do not behave like native speakers with respect to phonological variables. The study recommends a method for gradually training American learners to produce mid-vowel contrasts by following these steps: imparting the "Loi de Position" according to which the three mid-vowels are each realized by two variants in complementary distribution; assigning grammatical forms to the mid-vowel occurrences; adding lexical items; and making wider generalizations invollving graphic combinations. Appended are diagrams, tables, references, and a pronunciation questionnaire. (MSE)