Teaching Assistant in France Survival Guide

Overview – Application – Preparation – Arrival – Living – Returning home - Americans Traveling with Children

Teaching assistants in France are non-nationals granted temporary work visas to teach their native languages in French public schools. English, Spanish, Italian and German language assistants are the most common.

This guidebook serves current, potential, and past teaching assistants in France. (For those of us who have already served our terms, helping those who follow can be therapeutic.) It strives to assemble in one place, and improve upon, information useful to assistants — perhaps to any foreigner living in the Hexagon.

In this guidebook you will learn about being an assistant: the application and acceptance process, the paperwork, teaching and eventually leaving. You will also learn about traveling on a budget in Europe. If any of its information has fallen out of date or is lacking, please do contribute.

Currently, much of the information in this guide is geared towards American English assistants. Being a Wiki, we hope that it will grow to accommodate everyone in the program, eventually spanning languages.

Add your name and contact info to the Teaching Assistant Directory (for all languages) if you'd like to get in touch with other assistants in your académie, or perhaps e-mail former assistants for advice.

Some teaching assistants in the program do not go to metropolitan France at all; they go to overseas departments such as Guadeloupe . If you're one of them, you'll find this guide needs a whole new chapter: please write it!

A few good links for more information on the Teaching Assistantship program are:

Overview – Application – Preparation – Arrival – Living – Returning home - Americans Traveling with Children