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France appears to be a very popular destination for native speakers of English looking to go abroad to teach English. There is a charm and mystique about France that is unrivaled by most other countries. The reasons for this have as much to do with France’s history and culture and well as the varied geography of the country, and as well as France being home to one of the most exciting and beautiful cities there is, Paris.
If you are interested in teaching in France, you will first need to think about how you are going to do it legally. As a citizen of an EU member country, your problem is solved, you can work in France without a visa or a work permit--and chances are that you probably already know this. But if you are not a citizen of an EU member country, you will need a work visa. Beware, you will probably not find a French employer willing to hire you illegally (au noir in French), as the penalties are stiff for doing so.
I have dealt with visa and immigration matters on both personal and professional levels on different occasions in my life, including trying to get permission to stay and work in France a number of years ago, after I had been in the country for a while; and working with international students in the United States. The most important thing I have learned is that you cannot rely on the information your friends give you about visas and work permits, even if they are telling you from experience. Take my advice: listen to your friends, but follow up with experts on visa matters, in your home country, in France or at a French Consulate.
Let me give it to you straight: I recommend that you look for a job in France through an agency that specializes in placing non-EU citizens, or go through a program that specializes in such placement. If you are armed with bucketfuls of determination and a desire for true adventure, you can also go the route of finding an employer in France on your own and then enquiring with the French Consulate in your country or with the French authorities in France about what needs to be done for you to secure permission to work.
Finding an employer first: France, like many other countries in Europe, does not have an open door inviting non-EU citizens to simply come to France and take jobs for the picking. Their unemployment is too high for that. If you want to teach English in France you must be prepared to do quite a bit of work. If you plan on doing this on your own, I don’t recommend that you try to land a teaching job in France from outside of France; French employers are unlikely to reply to your enquiry if you contact them unsolicited from outside France. So you will need to go there.
Take your CV, transcripts, letters of recommendation and money and go to France. Take anything you think would be of value to show a prospective employer who you are and what you have done, but be sure that what you have is of value. Letters of recommendation and a university diploma or a training certificate, to show a level of training and education, are essential. The French are highly educated and well-trained people and they want their teachers to be, too. Though I have read and heard on many occasions that being a native speaker of English is sufficient to help you find a job teaching English, I don’t believe this is the current state of affairs. The French are not so desperate that they can’t pick and choose their English teachers. Get some training first.
Once in France buy yourself a cell phone and then start visiting employers in person and leaving your CV, copies of your letters of recommendation, and your phone number. Also be prepared to discuss with your prospective employer the fact that you do not have working papers and would like them to sponsor you. You will have to exercise a bit of salesmanship here, in order to convince them that you are worth their time and effort.
The French government does not allow you to change your immigration status inside the country—or if it will, it will not be an easy undertaking. (In this case, from tourist visa to working visa.) If you think this is unfair, I can tell you that the U.S. government has a similar policy (there may be exceptions to this, but you can’t depend on exceptions). So once you have found an employer who would like to hire you and sponsor you, and can offer you a contract, you will most likely have to return to your country to apply for a resident visa and work visa.
I recommend that having found a sponsor, you visit the Préfecture that has jurisdiction over your place of residency or over your employer’s location. The authorities at the Préfecture will tell you what you need to do to secure permission to live in France and to work. I have heard and read that you will need to return home to process the paperwork at a French Consulate, and I believe this is true. But what you read and hear is no substitute for what the French authorities tell you, or what an expert in the field of working visas can tell you. So go first to the Préfecture to see what they say.
Here is an excellent article with tips on getting permission to work in France in general (and not just for teachers). And here is more very useful and applicable information. Keep in mind that it is nearly impossible to process any paperwork related to living and working in France unless you can prove that you have a place to live in France, or unless you are sponsored by an agency.
A final note about doing things on your own: if you reply to an ad where an employer is looking specifically for a nationality that is not an EU member, then you’ll be in luck, as this employer will be ready to work with you on the visa matters, and likely will know quite well what you need to do to process the paperwork.
You can also go to France as a student and work part-time. French legislation permits foreign students to work 964 hours per year, which comes out to about 18.5 hours per week. After your studies you could also arrange with a French company to work more hours. This might be a pretty good route to getting some teaching hours full-time, that is, the student route. Take a look at this web page for more information.
Another possibility is to apply through an agency to work in France. Teacher’s Assistants (a position which exists in many other countries and seems to be relatively new in France) are recruited from abroad through the French Ministry of Education. For more information on the English Assistant in France program go here.
The Center for International Education also offers information about working as a Teaching Assistant. This site will give you the link to the French Ministry of Education, which I have mentioned above. Also consider the BUNAC website, which also offers further information about working in France. (It was a program similar to this one by BUNAC that brought me to France for the summer a number of years ago.)
The French generally have had less experience learning languages than have had many of their neighbors. You perhaps have heard stories about the French being “arrogant” or “stand-offish” and not willing to speak English to foreigners. I believe this perceived behavior may in fact be a symptom of their relatively poor language skills and their timidity when in a situation where they need to speak English. I have found that the French will warm up to a visitor much more readily when they see the visitor making an attempt to speak French. And there is absolutely no reason for anybody to go live and work in France thinking that they don’t need to know any French.
That said, I have found the French to be more shy than arrogant, and more hospitable than stand-offish. They are proud of their country and their way of life, but I don’t find it inconceivable that they may find it disturbing that so many people use their country as a “playground” of sorts without having much real interest in France, its history, its culture, or its people. So, when you teach the French, show interest in them and in their culture, and you will get a lot more mileage out of your efforts. And while you are at it, learn French.
One note about teaching the French: keeping a sense of humor and being ready to engage in “small talk” before you start your lessons are two essential ingredients to developing a healthy rapport with your students. Small talk at the beginning of a meeting is common with the French. Also, even those French men and women with less education than many of their compatriots are generally fairly well educated by the standards of other countries in the world, and therefore tend to enjoy intellectual challenges as part of their language learning experience. Don’t be afraid to try games, except if you are teaching English to a high-level executive who needs to improve his English for the many meetings he attends in other countries. I have made this mistake, and I made it only once.
Paris may be your destination in France, and being the center for business, politics and culture, will likely offer you the greatest number of job possibilities. Still, there is the rest of France, and the French living there have no less of a desire to learn English. If you are a risk-taker you may want to think about venturing outside of Paris to look for a job. There are language schools all over France and they are eager to find native speakers of English who can teach for them and who are willing to get to know France outside of Paris. This website may be a start for getting information on teaching opportunities outside of Paris.
In the end, living and working in France is a rewarding experience. But France is not paradise, as a country it has its problems just like any other country. The one thing to always remember when looking for work and when working in France, is that the French admire tenacity and determination, and they expect a person to make an effort to get what they want. If you approach your France experience with the mindset that it will be above all a challenge, and a rewarding one at that, you will not be disappointed.
Final notes:
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The French are in fact more friendly than most people give them credit for being. They will not give you a smile unless they are in the mood to do so, but a smile from a French person is always a sincere one. When the French consider you a friend, it is a serious matter--the French don’t make friends easily, and they don’t lose friends easily. If you don’t get a smile from a French person, give one anyway, and next time you see him or her, you’ll get one back.
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Workers in the French state administration have a reputation for not being the friendliest people in the world. Do not, I repeat, do not ever take their unfriendliness personally. Just maybe they don’t have the most enjoyable jobs in the world. In the French Consulates and in the Préfectures in France, you will run into workers who will not tell you “Have a nice day” as we do in North America. But they are highly trained, thorough and efficient workers who will get the job done for you as fast as the system allows.
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Consular workers may not be willing to discuss with you all that you need to do to get authorization to work, unless you have documents from a French employer, or from an agency, showing your serious intent and some serious support. But if you show these workers proper professional courtesy, they will return it and be more willing to help you out.
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Last, the quality of your experience in France depends 100% on you and your attitude and 0% on France and the people of France. What you give to France, you will get back—maybe not at the same moment you give it, but it will come back to you eventually. I believe that one other reason many people are drawn to France is to learn about the French themselves—to find out how much of what we have heard about them is true, and to find out just how much we in fact will appreciate the French despite some things we have been told. |
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From 15 People
