HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH IN FRANCE
You might be wondering how I’m funding my European escapades… in short, MY SAVINGS ACCOUNT!!!! Yeah, it’s taking a real hit RN (we’re pretty much not even on speaking terms at this point)…. but I DO HAVE A JOB HERE TOO! I work as an English Teaching Assistant which provides me with a little monthly salary, but more importantly A VISA. So, what is TAPIF?
Teaching Assistant Program in France is run by the french embassy in the United States to help get native english speakers in classrooms all across France. To qualify for this program you must be a native english speaker and have a proficiency in French. That’s the major difference between this program and others, it doesn’t require any accreditations or anything like that.
The other main difference is the amount of hours that you have to work. You only work 12 hours a week, which I personally love because it gives me a lot of free time to travel.
But because you’re working such few hours, you get paid accordingly: about 790 euros per month. Sometimes it’s hard for people to find supplemental incomes, because it has to be under the table work like babysitting or tutoring. This is why it can be difficult to live in Paris, because your whole paycheck IF NOT MORE will go to just rent.
When applying you will rate your top 3 regions, I chose the Reims region thinking that I’d be placed in that city, but I ended up being put about an hour outside of the city in a small town. So just know that putting a region DOES NOT mean you will get that city. But there are assistants from literally everywhere from Paris to Nice to Bordeaux, so you very well could be too!
Let’s talk housing. Sometimes your schools will help you find an apartment, other times they won’t it just depends (crappy answer, I know). I got lucky and my school had an apartment for me for just 200 euros/month. They contacted me about 3 weeks before my start date to give me the details about the apartment.
As far as the actual job… You can request what age of students you’ll teach, but sometimes they’ll just stick you with whatever they want. For example, I requested middle and high school students. My contract said middle and high school students. I got to my small town, and it turns out I’m teaching at two elementary schools too. So you really just never know!
Some schools expect you to come in with your own full lesson plans, sometimes you will just work in small groups, help individual students, or even just stay in the background of the teacher’s class and lend a helping hand. In my experience, it all varies from class to class and school to school.
I gotta say, I’ve been pretty lucky with my experience… My town isn’t great, very small but I’ve met some great people here. Also I get to go into the city once a week, and I’m only two hours from Paris— so I’m not complaining!
That was just a brief overview, but if you have any questions just comment on my latest instagram @planetochampagne. I’m considering possibly doing a whole post on the application. Let me know what you think!