You Aren’t Doomed to Become an English Teacher in France
We know how the headline sounds, but hear us out. Though we believe that teaching is an admirable, necessary profession, especially in the domain of second-language acquisition, it’s simply not for everyone. However, we’ve noticed a theme among anglophones hoping to reside in France on the long term: a large number of them are drawn to becoming English teachers.
This motif is especially common when it comes to alumni of the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) hoping to extend their stay in France.
You might be thinking,
But, isn’t TAPIF a program specifically meant for people passionate about teaching English?
While we understand why you might think that to be the case, you’d be absolutely wrong. In fact, many TAPIF participants, including us, arrived in France with nothing more than a slight interest in teaching English to French students. Even TAPIF markets itself as a cultural experience rather than a veritable teaching job, asking applicants,
Are you ready to expand your horizons and share your language and culture with French students?
Further proof that TAPIF isn’t necessarily in the business of training English teachers resides in their application requirements, the duties of the assistantship, and the job prospects they advertise for after the program.
Basic eligibility requirements for the program include holding United States citizenship, falling in the age range of 20 to 35 years old, having completed at least 3 years of higher education, being a native speaker of English, and demonstrating B1-level French proficiency. The program specifies that applicants who have prior experience teaching or working with children, adolescents, and/or adults will be favored, but that this is not a requirement.
Moreover, assistants are tasked with a mere 12 hours of work per week, consisting of practicing oral production skills with small groups of students. Working with a full class, assigning homework, conducting formal assessments, grading work, disciplining students, holding parent-teacher meetings, completing administrative tasks, and more duties required of full-time teachers fall completely outside of the scope of the assistantship. It’s just as well, since the majority of TAPIF participants are in no way qualified to be tasked with such responsibility given the broad application requirements.
TAPIF also highlights the fact that their alumni go on to “pursue global careers in education, international business, public health, international policy and development, arts and culture administration, among other fields,” further demonstrating that becoming an English teacher is not the only possible job outcome for former TAPIFers.
So, then, why do so many foreigners in France attempt to launch careers as English teachers following their TAPIF experience?
Some portion of ex-TAPIF assistants really do have a passion for teaching. Perhaps they previously studied education or simply fell in love with teaching English during TAPIF. If this sounds like you, know that this article is not relevant. We encourage everyone to embrace their true calling – and if yours is teaching, do it! However, we suspect that a disproportionate amount of Americans pursue a teaching career in France for…other reasons.
Help! I want to stay in France!
As it turns out, spending an academic year in France just isn’t enough for many assistants. TAPIF allows participants to renew their contracts once, meaning that two academic years is the maximum amount of time that Americans can spend as TAPIFers. However, many want to extend their stay in France even further, sometimes at the last minute.
Lots of American assistants come to the conclusion that teaching English is their ticket to do just that and generally follow one of the more popular pathways. To name just a few common examples, some apply for lecteur·rice positions that resemble the TAPIF assistantship but involve working with university students for a maximum of two academic years. Others search for English teaching jobs in the private sector and in international schools in France. Still others apply for master’s degrees in fields like Métiers de l’Enseignement, de l’Éducation et de la Formation (MEEF) or Études anglophones, aiming to eventually work in French private schools.
For many anglophones simply looking for a way to stay in France, teaching English is an obvious choice. As native English speakers who have dipped their toes in teaching in France, it only makes sense for them to pursue an English-teaching career…right?
What if I fail?
The truth of the matter is that anglophones pursuing teaching careers in France often had no real interest in education before TAPIF. People with degrees in political science, international affairs, French literature, anthropology, economics, sociology, theatre, mathematics, engineering, and practically any other field you can imagine are accepted to participate in TAPIF. However, it seems that post TAPIF, prior interests can fall to the wayside in favor of English teaching – viewed as the simpler, failsafe alternative.
For some, securing a teaching job or completing a master’s degree that may lead to one feels less risky than attempting to follow their original dreams in a French setting. Fear of failure ultimately funnels otherwise diverse profiles into the English-teaching profession. Nevertheless, we’re not convinced that teaching English is actually an unchallenging option.
What could be easier than teaching English?
From what we know of others’ experiences, becoming an English teacher in France is an arduous road that leads to a tough career. For example, taking on a master’s degree in MEEF requires advanced written and oral skills in French, involves adhering to French university methodology, demands passing high-stakes assignments, calls for doing student teaching placements, and can culminate in taking a notoriously difficult concours, or competitive exam. Searching for a job in the private sector or in international schools is no cakewalk either – for starters, you’ll almost certainly need advanced French skills, ample time, and adequate money to support yourself while you seek out companies and convince them to sponsor you. Plus, whether you work in an international school or a French private school, being a teacher is hard, and even more so in a foreign country! You’ll be fully responsible for all of the obligations that TAPIF and lecteur·rice positions conveniently leave out.
Teaching English in France isn’t a way to bypass the difficult task of studying or starting a career abroad. On the contrary, it’s one of the more demanding tracks that may ultimately lead to a job that necessitates things like working many hours outside of the classroom and handling difficult student situations, all for a less-than-competitive salary. It’s valuable work that’s vital to society, but it’s not child’s play!
But, teaching is my only professional experience!
Everyone knows that French society generally tends to esteem a parcours professionnel linéaire, or a linear career path. For this reason, some people believe that spending time as an assistant with TAPIF following their bachelor’s degree has locked them into a teaching career, thinking it’s the only logical next step. Not so! In reality, TAPIFers walk away from the program with so much more than just teaching experience.
While it’s true that participants hone skills like lesson planning, working with students, and classroom management during TAPIF, the list doesn’t end there. Assistants also upgrade their abilities in numerous domains, including leadership, public speaking, collaborating with coworkers, conflict resolution, flexibility, multitasking, independence, creativity, cross-cultural communication, and more. Such proficiencies will enhance any CV, regardless of whether a teaching career is on the horizon. We should know – after our year with TAPIF, we were accepted into master’s degrees in law and logistics and went on to find full-time employment in our fields of study in France.
Basically, there’s no reason to think that because you spent a year or two as an English assistant, making it your lifelong career is unavoidable.
If you recognize yourself in this article, we strongly encourage you to reflect upon the breadth of study and career options available to Americans in France.
After all, we each only get one life, and making decisions based on quickly securing a French residence permit or attempting to avoid as many challenges as possible all while ignoring your true passions is a crying shame. You not only don’t have to be an English teacher in France, but you shouldn’t be one unless you’re sincerely enthusiastic about the idea.
9 Comments
Megan Lapke
Hi guys, I think this article does an overall great job showing people what English teaching opportunities are out there and what exactly they might entail or require for us foreigners. However, as someone who was a “lectruce d’anglais” for a year, and a “maître de langue étrangère” (you may want to add that in there too as it is also available to native speakers) for two, I wanted to point out the inaccuracy of this statement: “To name just a few common examples, some apply for lecteur·rice positions that resemble the TAPIF assistantship but involve working with university students for a maximum of two academic years.” Having been an assistant myself, albeit 8 years ago now, I would never compare any university teaching job to the assistantship. They are completely different and don’t resemble each other at all, to me. You have a lot of responsibilities as a lecteur or maître de langue! If you didn’t they would sure as heck pay you like an assistant. For example, you go to meetings, you work together with other colleague in other subjects/departments (facs), you deal with a ton of administration, emails, and you are fully responsible for all the content, prep, and all the grading. Most positions aren’t giving you course materials. I run a group comprised of 1.7k members for lecteurs/MDL and that’s been the case there for my members, aka other lecteurs, MDL, contractuels who are from all over the world. Sorry for the novel, I felt I had to add some information to this part. Keep up the good work!
Jalen & Maria
Hi, Megan. Thanks for your support as always.
This article actually isn’t meant to show people what English teaching opportunities are available for foreigners. You could even say it’s about the opposite! We wrote this post to explain that teaching English is not the only career option for Americans in France and that it’s not the simple, failsafe alternative that it’s too often made out to be.
If we were to write about English teaching opportunities and what they entail for foreigners, we would be much more comprehensive. In fact, you can see in the article that we used the phrasing “to name just a few common examples” to ensure that there was no confusion. For this reason, we left out positions like maître de langue étrangère or contractuel, for example.
In general, we blog about topics that we are familiar with, which is why this article is about pursuing something other than teaching after TAPIF, and not about telling people how to make a career of teaching English in France.
While your point about the specifics of lecteur·rice positions may be accurate, it is wholly irrelevant to the article. In the only two mentions of lecteur·rice positions we say that they a) resemble the assistantship and b) do not rise to the level of full-time teaching.
a) Lecteur·rice positions resemble TAPIF assistantships in that they are both part-time, short-term, aimed at young people, don’t strictly require extensive prior teaching experience, have education requirements, are meant for native speakers of English, can be renewed one time, offer a visa, and do not culminate in full-time employment. For the purposes of this article, these similarities are more than enough to warrant the use of the word “resemble.”
b) Though they may be more demanding than TAPIF assistantships, lecteur·rice positions are not the same as full-time teaching.
For these reasons, there was no need for any correction on your part, as we made no statements about TAPIF and lecteur·rice positions being of equal difficulty.
While we appreciate that you have expertise in lecteur·rice positions, maître de langue étrangère positions, and full-time teaching positions, and run a group with 1.7k members, the content of this article doesn’t necessitate such knowledge. Our experience as TAPIFers, master’s degree students, and managers of The Francofile community more than suffices to explain that there are options out there for Americans in France other than teaching English.
Furthermore, some of the differences that you highlighted between TAPIF assistantships and lecteur·rice positions are not fully accurate in our experience. For example, during TAPIF, we were personally not given course materials and were responsible for all content and preparation. Again, it’s not important for this article, as we never said that TAPIF and lecteur·rice positions were exactly the same, but it felt necessary to point out that all of the differences you called attention to do not always exist anyway.
We love following your journey as an American teacher in France, and are happy that you took the time to visit the blog. We hope this clarifies the choices we made in writing our article. Thanks so much for clicking, reading, and leaving us a comment!
Griffin St. Onge
I think this post contains a lot of useful information, and I get that it’s supposed to make non-Europeans feel hopeful about finding work in France in a variety of fields, but it’s missing an important caveat about visa sponsorship. If you don’t do a two-year master’s in France and want a French company to sponsor you, they have to attest that they could not find a European to do the job! It’s certainly hard. Doing the master’s in your field helps with this, but getting hired sustainably off that recherche d’emploi visa has several roadblocks in it as well. There’s a reason why many immigrants around the world have a hard time finding their footing in their exact field – immigration restrictions. The French ones are a bit easier to navigate than the American ones, but they’re certainly there. There are reasons why a lot of the people who manage to stick around in France are either English teachers or legally partnered to French people, and they are systemic. A country you’re trying to immigrate to by yourself doesn’t owe you your dream job – not even your native country does. Of course, it is possible to work in different fields as an immigrant in France, but it’s not just a matter of envisioning possibilites outside of teaching. A lot of it is chance.
Also, a quick correction: while lecteur/trice responsibilites vary from institution to institution, it is a much more demanding gig than being an assistant! Most are expected to write their own tests, spend their own time grading, attend meetings, manage student communication outside of class, etc.. I also feel like, while you do say some important things valuing teachers, this post is still quite negative towards them. The word “doomed” just really wasn’t the right one to use here. The characterization of English teachers in France being that only a few in there really want to do it and the rest are misers just tragically pushing through it for a visa… first of all, like I said before, it forgets the systemic factors that create the situation, and it also feels like you’re a bit judgmental of the swaths of people who do teach, for whatever reason they choose to do it.
Jalen & Maria
Hello! We’re glad you found the article useful.
To address your comment about “visa sponsorship,” we’d first like to clarify that your characterizations of completing a master’s degree, the carte de séjour “recherche d’emploi/création d’entreprise,” and visa sponsorship are simply not nuanced enough to be relevant. Furthermore, we would never imply the process of getting a master’s degree in France and finding a sustainable job is easy and without roadblocks. However, difficult and impossible are not the same.
By implying that becoming an English teacher and/or entering into a legal partnership with a French person are the only real ways to stick around in France, you show yourself to be one of the people that we believe are misled. It is this exact line of thinking that makes people feel doomed to become an English teacher, as they are under the impression that any other way is next to impossible. It also suggests that becoming an English teacher in France is somehow simple, which we demonstrated in the article to be false.
We would like to point out where your argument about immigration difficulties falls flat. In your analysis, you seem to say that becoming an English teacher considerably facilitates the immigration process, and that’s only true in a very specific case. Non-Europeans who are not in a legal partnership with a French person who complete a master’s degree and pass the competitive exam do get to bypass some of the immigration roadblocks that you mentioned. However, this is far from the only path that people take to become English teachers in France. In fact, we only gave a handful of examples in our article – there are tons of pathways! Non-Europeans who do not take and pass the competitive exam and still want to become an English teacher in France do not have a facilitated process. Ergo, from an immigration standpoint, they have the same possibilities and difficulties as any other non-European looking for a job in France.
While of course finding gainful employment in France does not end at “envisioning possibilities outside of teaching,” it certainly can begin there. We believe that people should be aware of the full breadth of study and career possibilities in France before making any potentially lifelong decisions. For some, understanding these options will lead them to becoming a teacher. For others, it will lead them to pursuing other careers.
While your point about the specifics of lecteur·rice positions may be accurate, it is wholly irrelevant to the article. First of all, this article is not about enumerating the possibilities of English teaching in France. It gives an overview of common pathways taken by Americans in France (usually after TAPIF) as part of a larger demonstration of the fact that there are other possibilities. Furthermore, in the only two mentions of lecteur·rice positions we say that they a) resemble the assistantship and b) do not rise to the level of full-time teaching.
a) Lecteur·rice positions resemble TAPIF assistantships in that they are both part-time, short-term, aimed at young people, don’t strictly require extensive prior teaching experience, have education requirements, are meant for native speakers of English, can be renewed one time, offer a visa, and do not culminate in full-time employment. For the purposes of this article, these similarities are more than enough to warrant the use of the word “resemble.”
b) Though they may be more demanding than TAPIF assistantships, lecteur·rice positions are not the same as full-time teaching.
For these reasons, there was no need for any correction on your part, as we made no statements about TAPIF and lecteur·rice positions being of equal difficulty.
On your critique of the word doomed, we would like to give the definition of the word and an explanation for our choice. Google offers “likely to have an unfortunate and inescapable outcome” as a definition, and we feel that this perfectly describes the situation some Americans in France are in. For example, people otherwise uninterested in teaching English feeling forced to become English teachers in France would feel “doomed” to an “unfortunate” and “inescapable” outcome of having to carry out a challenging career that they never truly wanted to pursue. It has nothing to do with the teaching profession itself, but rather how the individual perceives the situation. Some people’s greatest aspirations are other people’s worst nightmares.
Next, we do not have access to any statistics regarding how many Americans teaching in France are doing so out of enthusiasm versus out of feeling like it was the only option. For this reason, we never asserted that there are more English teachers in France who made their career decision out of perceived necessity than there are English teachers who made their decision based on genuine interest. We only state that we suspect that, compared to other careers, there is a disproportionate amount of Americans pursuing teaching because they feel that they must do so or have no other viable options.
Finally, on your comment about being judgemental, it is our opinion that those who want to teach should do so, and that those that don’t want to teach should at the very least be aware that they have other options. What people actually end up choosing once they have knowledge of all that is possible is of little importance – we just want to encourage people to follow their dreams. We’re convinced that choosing a career you’re sincerely enthusiastic about is a good idea.
We hope this clarifies the choices we made in writing our article. Thanks so much for clicking, reading, and leaving us a comment!
AMD31
So I actually agree with the sentiment behind this article, but I have to nit-pick a little. I know it’s literally about a single sentence in the article, but whatever, y’all wrote a novel about it in the comments, so I’m just here to say that it is actually inaccurate to say that Lecteur jobs are part-time or that they don’t ressemble full-time teaching. While it doesn’t technically require a background in education, they are so competetive, that you pretty much have to have previous experience anyway. it is very much a full-time position where you have the full responsibilities of a teacher – from deciding the syllabus in many cases, to writing and grading the exams. It’s a very far cry from the assistant gig, and very similar to a full-time teaching job (because it is one). You have multiple people who have done both jobs in your comments telling you so; Not sure why you’re so dedicated to proving us wrong 🙂
That being said, yeah some people go into teaching because it seems like the easy road. They shouldn’t feel like they have to, and your post is a good way to highlight that. There’s a reason that several teachers have come in here expressing disappointment with some of the wording, and it’s too bad that you’ve been dismissive and defensive, instead of hearing what we’re saying. At the end of the day, we all agree on the main idea.
Jalen & Maria
Hello, happy to hear that you concur with some of the article.
Lecteur·rice positions are not full-time jobs, full stop. One part-time job requiring more experience, having more responsibilities, or being more time-consuming than another part-time job does not make the former a full-time job. You are also incorrect that any of the other commenters thus far have suggested as such.
For every commenter that decried the comparison between the TAPIF assistantship and lecteur·rice positions, there are blog articles, YouTube videos, and social media posts by people who have both done TAPIF and been a lecteur·rice that state the exact opposite. To suggest that there is somehow a consensus because “multiple people” have commented here is simply not true. It is precisely for this reason that we prefer to base our position on something more concrete than any individual’s perception.
Accurate and useful information can sometimes feel disappointing to the people reading it. We recognize that some of our readers felt difficult emotions whilst reading this post. We have allowed said readers the space on our blog to express themselves and process those feelings. We also take the time to address most comments individually because we value open communication on our platform. However, we can both hear what a commenter is saying and continue to disagree on certain points.
We hope this clarifies the choices we made in writing our article. Thanks so much for clicking, reading, and leaving us a comment!
FrancoManiac
First of all, I love your blog and am so glad I found it! Your desire to have a career that you don’t just tolerate, but truly love and are undoubtedly passionate about is admirable. However I don’t think people necessarily need to feel that way about their career. At the end of the day the most important thing is that we have a sustainable income and that we can get up in the morning and not dread going to work. That doesn’t mean that you have to love your job, regardless of if you’re a teacher, doctor, lawyer, whatever, but you have to be able to tolerate it. That goes for teachers too. I don’t think anyone should be dissuaded from teaching just because of the issues mentioned in your article. Every career has crappy parts to it; teaching is no exception. If someone would hate having to grade papers and do lesson plans, they shouldn’t become a teacher. If someone hates how lengthy court cases can be or having to speak publicly in front of a courtroom, they shouldn’t become a lawyer. If someone hates regularly being long distances from home, they shouldn’t become a pilot. You see what I mean. I think the best bet is for people to be well informed of the crappy parts of the career they’re orienting themselves toward and ask themselves, “can I handle doing this every day?” That doesn’t mean that you have to love doing the crappy parts, but rather that you can tolerate them enough to be able to get the work done, make your money, and not hate your life in the process. I think this is why becoming a world languages teacher is such a popular option for TAPIF alumni and anyone with formal education who moves to a foreign country. Even if teaching isn’t usually well paid, it provides a sustainable income and job security and is always in demand – especially for world languages teachers. It’s also an asset for the school system and students to have a native speakers teaching world languages. Teaching can also be highly fulfilling work. Teaching isn’t for either of you, and that’s not a problem, but I encourage others to not be dissuaded from the profession just because of a few unfavourable things. Every job has unfavourable things. C’est la vie ! We just have to weigh them out and see if we can personally tolerate them or not.
Jalen & Maria
We are glad you found us, too! Welcome to the community!
We don’t necessarily think that people need to be undoubtedly passionate about their careers either. We don’t even think that you necessarily have to “love” your job. However, we believe that when you have a choice between studies or a career that you simply “tolerate” and studies or a career that you’re enthusiastic about, it’s generally preferable to choose the latter.
While having a sustainable income and not dreading going to work are indeed two important parts of choosing a career, the target audience of this article is people that are in a position to go beyond that. Bachelor’s degree holding TAPIF alumni generally have the privilege to pursue studies and careers that make them excited if they so wish. We therefore think it to be a shame that people in such a position are unaware of the full breadth of their options.
We don’t intend to dissuade everyone from a teaching career. Quite the opposite – as we mentioned multiple times in the article, teaching is an admirable profession, and people who desire to become teachers should do so. However, people pursuing teaching English in France because they are under the impression that they have no other options are not in the same category. A fictional example would be a TAPIF alum with a bachelor’s degree in biology who hoped to become a research scientist resigning themself to teaching English instead as they believe that accomplishing their career goals and living in France are incompatible.
Any mention of the “crappy” parts of teaching in the article was only meant to demonstrate the fact that teaching English in France is not the simple, failsafe alternative that it’s too often made out to be. Furthermore, as you mentioned, every profession has downsides. However, people enthusiastic about teaching will be happier to deal with the downsides than people who felt that they had to pivot from their original goals to instead become an English teacher.
When you say that people who dislike public speaking should not become lawyers, people who dislike long-distance travel should not become pilots, and people who dislike grading papers and lesson plans should not become teachers, you both contradict yourself and introduce a topic that ultimately falls outside of the scope of our article. Your first statement can be boiled down to people should discard careers that include things they don’t like. However, you also say that as long as you don’t “hate your life in the process,” then people should choose careers that do include things they don’t like. Therefore, we are unclear as to what position you actually take. Either way, our article is simply about explaining to Americans in France that teaching English is not the only career option open to them, that they can actually choose a career based on their desires, and that teaching English in France is not taking the easy way out.
If we apply your statement that you should do a job where you can “tolerate [the downsides] enough to be able to get the work done, make your money, and not hate your life in the process,” then we would both be great candidates for a teaching career! We would absolutely be able to tolerate the job. However, even you go on to recognize that even though we could tolerate it, “teaching isn’t for either of [us], and that’s not a problem.” This is exactly what our article endeavors to illustrate – Teaching is a great profession, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, and Americans in France shouldn’t feel forced to pursue it.
We hope this clarifies the choices we made in writing our article. Thanks so much for clicking, reading, and leaving us a comment!
FrancoManiac
I appreciate your response to my response. You misunderstood some of what I said, so I’ll clarify. Based on your response, I clearly misunderstood what you intended to say with your article as well. When I read your article, I took it to mean that you want to discourage TAPIF alumni from going into teaching (in France) because it’s a difficult job, which made no sense to me because if you really believe that teaching is the only job out there that’s difficult and unfavourable, you’re in for a rude awakening. Both of you will have stressful, exhausting, chaotic, and unfavourable moments in your careers, whether you go into teaching or not. Everyone does. But you clarified that what you meant is that teaching just isn’t for YOU and that you’d personally rather do other things, and furthermore you encourage other TAPIF alumni to do the same unless they really love teaching. I agree with that, so thanks for clarifying. By mentioning how if one hates grading papers and doing other essential, every day things that a teacher does, they should not be a teacher, I was not contradicting myself. It’s true, a teacher doesn’t need to love doing those things (none of us do!), but you have to be able to tolerate that if you’re a teacher. If having to do those things would make someone hate their life, they clearly can’t tolerate those things and should not become a teacher. I mentioned that in my response because in reading your article, it felt to me that you all were looking to have a utopia career where you love everything about it, and but again you have since clarified that that’s not what you meant at all because we’re all in agreement that there is no perfect career. We just have to weigh the crappy parts of a job and evaluate whether or not we can personally, overall tolerate those crappy things that will come with whatever career we choose. That was the point.