The glorious countryside, southern climate, food and wine can make life in France seem like a dream come true. The real world usually comes rushing in however, when it is time to look for work.
France’s high unemployment rate, rigid labour laws and reluctance of employers to hire new workers are no secret. Foreigners are certainly not spared the difficulties of the tight job market, but fortunately English speakers can always turn to language teaching as a full-time career or as a way to, as the French say, mettre du beurre dans les épinards (literally butter your spinach); or as we would say, bring home the bacon.
Although the pay rates, especially in the private sector, may not seem overly generous, teaching jobs in towns and cities are surprisingly plentiful. Employers will still recruit enthusiastic English speakers who are interested in teaching even if they have no qualifications or experience, which is rare in other service industries.
Positions can range from working with toddlers in private bilingual pre-schools to teaching classes in state primary schools, collèges, lycées or universities. Giving lessons in business English to company employees or classes over the telephone is another possibility, while informal private lessons are a good way to earn a little extra pocket money.
The Education Ministry in Paris told Living France that a great opportunity currently exists for native English speakers to find work in primary schools. Eighty-six per cent of schools in France now benefit from an hour-and-a-half of English teaching each week. As from the 2007/8 school year, classes start with seven-year-olds entering CE1 and continue for the next four years until CM2.
‘Studies by linguists have shown that the earlier a child learns a language, the easier it is for him or her to speak it as they get older,’ the spokeswoman said.
English is spoken so widely in business that parents with their children’s future in mind usually make it their first choice, despite a recent resurgence in German.
She conceded that there were not 25 hours a week of teaching available though, and suggested that teachers would need to find work at several schools or have a second source of income.
Interested candidates should contact the Inspecteur de l’Académie of their region, and ideally pass a half-hour examination known as a habilitation. For those wishing to teach in collèges or lycées, the CAPES entrance examination (see below) is required, although private schools are known to take on teachers without the qualification.
Teacher training
A rigorous examination requiring excellent French, the CAPES d’Anglais is designed to weed out candidates who do not have the intellectual capacity or knowledge of English (and French) deemed necessary to teach in schools. It usually requires one year of preparation through a university or with the Cned, the French distance learning organisation, followed by a year’s teacher training.
The corresponding exam for teaching at university level is the agrégation. Definitely not for the faint-hearted, the three written exams in the CAPES externe take five hours but the longest in the agrégation takes seven hours!
Outside France’s education system, English teaching jobs can always be found in private language schools. The French unemployment service, the ANPE, advertises job vacancies under the formateur/formatrice section on their website.
Alternatively, a list of schools under école de langues on the internet or in the Yellow Pages is available.
The manager of the British American Institute, a private language school in Aix-en-Provence, Nicolas Goubkine, says he always prefers job seekers to personally drop off their CV and a motivation letter at the school.
Sense of humour
Teaching experience and TEFL qualifications such as the CELTA are helpful, he says, but not strictly necessary. The school also looks for English speakers who are enthusiastic about teaching, have an open personality, a sense of humour and can work as part of a team.
‘We like to have a variety of people working for us. One person has taught English in Iraq and another has experience with deaf people.’
Mr Goubkine says the six teachers at his school are paid between €15-18 (£10.47-£12.57) an hour, including preparation time. Foreigners are surprised at the low pay rates, he says, but need to remember that for each hour worked at €15 (£12.57) for example, employers will be paying out another €15 (£12.57) for social charges, health insurance and retirement contributions.
Contracts at language schools are either permanent (un contrat à durée indéterminée or CDI) or short-term (un contrat à durée déterminée or CDD), and it is always a good idea to read employment conditions closely. A frequent sticking point is when teachers have to use their own vehicles, so be clear about reimbursement for fuel and toll charges.
Each department in France has a state-run Inspection du Travail where staff will give advice without charge, about the legality of contracts and labour laws covering such subjects as holiday pay, sick pay and maternity leave.
Private tutoring is another teaching avenue now boosted by the chèque emploi service scheme, a recent government initiative that not only simplifies paperwork but also entitles employers to a 50 per cent tax rebate on the amount paid to the tutor.
Putting notices up around your village in places where people gather like the boulangerie or the boucherie can be a highly effective way to find students keen to brush up on their grammar or simply looking for an interesting conversation class.
FLYING HIGH
After passing the CAPES examination, Irish-born Edna O’Dea found a top-level job teaching English 12 hours a week to engineering students at the École Nationale Supérieur des Arts et Métiers in Aix-en-Provence.
She was also promoted to fonctionnaire or civil servant status which means she has job security until retirement, a pension package and paid holidays which add up to three and a half months a year.
Edna is quick to point out though, that her job is highly demanding. She earns €1,760 (£1,229) net each month but spends hours working on lesson plans that will motivate students ‘who prefer partying to learning English’. She often works late at night setting and marking exams. ‘People think teachers just swan around but the reality is quite different.’
Raised in Dublin where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied Languages, Edna came to France 17 years ago. She began teaching adults with the Chamber of Commerce in Marseille and subsequently worked for several private schools.
She enjoyed meeting French people from all walks of life and gaining an insight into the industries and economic fabric of the region.
During classes at the Marseille-Provence airport in Marignane for example, she taught a variety of employees ranging from the cleaners to airline pilots. ‘It was always interesting and I never dragged my feet to work,’ she says. A desire to earn a regular and higher salary and take on more responsibility was the catalyst for her to sit the CAPES two years ago. Her flawless spoken and written French was necessary in the exam which has a highly intellectual approach to language and teaching and requires a huge depth of knowledge about a variety of subjects.
‘I remember reading one book that analysed the verbs ‘be’ and ‘have’ for 25 pages and concluded that the two verbs had the same meaning,’ she laughs. The overall exam pass rate in 2007 was 27.6 per cent, but as an Anglophone, Edna is definitely part of a small minority to qualify for teaching upper-level English in the French national education system.
FAMILY FRIENDLY
‘Teaching English is the ideal job when you have children,’ says Vicky Millet, who arranges her classes to fit in with her family’s timetable.
Vicky and her French husband, Christophe, live in Gréasque, south of Aix-en-Provence, with their three school-age children.
She tries to ensure that her classes finish in time to collect them after school and does not work Wednesdays or school holidays, unless by mutual agreement.
The former chemical engineer-turned teacher says she loves her job which takes her to various companies located in the Bouches-du-Rhône, but also involves weekly telephone lessons that she can conveniently schedule from home.
‘I love going to new places and meeting new people. Nearly all of the students are motivated as they usually need to speak English in their jobs,’ says Vicky, who was originally from Cheshire but moved to France 15 years ago.
As a part-time teacher in a private language school, she recognises that she is lucky to have flexible employers. She was hired with no previous experience but was trained to use the company’s method which is oral-based with plenty of repetition and reinforcement of grammar points when necessary.
One of the advantages has been that she has brushed up on her own knowledge of grammar which was previously sketchy because she had studied science rather than tenses and conjugations.