First of all, if you are thinking about becoming a language assistant then know this – the year will be the busiest of your life. I’ve rather scarily been on a gap year in France for a month now, and since I started work a week ago I have not stopped to breathe.
If you’re thinking about going to work abroad as a language assistant, I’m going to give you a little insight into what your first week may be like, and if you already are an assistant then I’m sure you can relate to this as everyone I have talked seems to be experiencing the same!
Part One: Being a Teacher
So first of all you will begin work, you will be thrown in at the deep end, and as soon as your first rather nervous, sweaty-handed hour is over, you will love it. I arrived at my college on my first day, met some amazing members of staff and was promptly handed over a class of 25 thirteen year olds. The teacher did stay at the back of the class which gave me confidence, although she completely left me to it, and I’m so thankful I foresaw France being shit at telling people things and had prepared a PowerPoint!
So I talked about myself for a while, showed pictures, opened the floor for questions and then asked everybody questions back. The hour flew by and I had another two classes to do exactly the same with later on in the afternoon, by which time even I was starting to believe I was a real teacher, especially after being handed keys and an online ID pass.
Now of course not everybody’s schools will run as smoothly. My first day at my lycée was completely different, and the first hour was pretty awful, but as soon as I was put in front of some students it didn’t matter. They really look up to you and you do feel great because you are one hundred percent qualified in a subject they are trying desperately to master, and you can really analyse everybody’s competence levels and see how you can help them. So don’t freak out if your first impression isn’t great.
I have spent a whole day today doing lesson plans for various classes and ages and am so looking forward to taking classes on my own. For current assistants- the British Council website has some great ideas on themed classes.
Twelve hours a week, plus a few hours commuting, plus a day’s lesson planning adds up, but if you think you’ll be sitting around twiddling your thumbs you’re soooooo wrong.
Part Two: Gaining a Bunch of French Banlieue Bro’s
Okay, so this part may only apply to me, but everybody will make French friends, it just so happens that all mine are La Haine style ghetto guys that make me wanna add mon frère to the end of every sentence.
Firstly- I love them. They are so amazing, all of them. If I ever have any problems with anything- from internet to finding a gym to a nobhead on the street being pervy, they’re there, they look out for me so much it feels like I have a huge collection of older brothers looking after me and making sure I don’t get no shit from no one. The foyer is so great in that I’m never on my own here. In fact it’s actually quite difficult to just have a night watching a film without being undisturbed when everyone knows your room number, or when there’s a party going on downstairs, or everyone is hanging out in the courtyard drinking pepsi and smoking as the French always do.
Another good thing is that I have to speak French all the time. Until I started class last week I hadn’t spoken English properly for ages, and my mind is so absorbed in French when I’m with these guys that it’s sometimes a bit odd to read a book in English or speak with my British friends straight after. I just hope I don’t go back to university with their accent next year…
Part Three: Meeting English Speakers!
So last Wednesday there was a training day for assistants which is where I finally met people doing the same as me! I arranged to meet a girl at a metro station and we walked there together which was so nice and much less intimidating that walking in by ourselves.
We found ourselves chatting with a couple of really nice girls and had lunch with a group of great lads and somehow ended up forging a friendship group that I love! After the training day we all went to an Australian bar at grands boulevards and had a few pints together and go to know each other. So even if you’re worried about meeting people abroad (like I was) I think I have found out that actually it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Last Saturday there was a huge Erasmus picnic organised at the Jardin de Luxembourg. Our little group met up before hand, somehow came across an orchestra playing in the park, shamefully got a McDonalds and then went to crack open a bottle of wine with some other strangers in what turned out to be a huge group of at least 100 language assistants.
It’s also only on your year abroad where you meet some complete strangers at a picnic and then spend the whole night with them, making the most of the Parisian Nuite Blanche. If you don’t already know, the Nuite Blanche basically means ‘doing an all-nighter’ and Paris is buzzing. The metro is open all night and is largely free, as are a huge number of museums and monuments. Me, a friend, and the two people I had met a few hours previously spent ages exploring St Michel by night, ate at an amazing falafel bar for 5 euros (!), drank by the Seine with a view of Notre Dame and met some French people, saw street dancers, went into the Notre Dame (whilst drunk…still feel guilty…) and watched the amazing firework display from the Musée d’Orsay.
Yesterday me and an assistant friend also took the obligatory trip to the Eiffel Tower and popped in to the Musée d’Armée/Hotel des Invalides to see ‘ol Napoleon rotting away in his enormous tomb. I also had my first crepe since being here, although the guy overdid the Nutella and I think I’ll be laying off them for a while…
Part Four: Stuff that gets squeezed in when you have time.
Okay so this section includes Supermarket shopping. You will do a lot of this. And you will pay a lot of money. And then you will go home and look at your shopping and wonder if you dropped half of it because you have had to take out a mortgage to buy some bananas and a box of cereal. This means that a lot of your time will be taken up in search of food. For example, fresh fruit and veg comes from the weekend markets and from Franprix during the week.
For fish and chocolate and tea, I walk to lidl (this takes 25 minutes) and for anything to do with my shower/hair/body/kitchen utensils I go to Monoprix (this takes about 15 minutes to get to) unless I can find it in Tuesday’s market. The shop on the corner sells cheap beer and for anything like bottle openers or lunch boxes there’s a shop on the main street that has everything for cheap. Basically, to not throw your money away, you have to do a lot of shopping and re-shopping and re-re-shopping. My mum would love it here.
Secondly, exercise is becoming essential. I am slowly resembling an elephant and have started to try and counteract this with great difficulty. The problem with you France is that your food is too good and it is everywhere. You can’t walk down the street without passing ten bistros and restaurants and smelling the food and seeing people sitting outside eating it.
The patisseries are killing me slowly- how is bread so good and yet so cheap, and even when I make it home without caving in, I am greeted by my kitchen in the same room as where I work and sleep and wee and I can smell what I cooked three hours ago and I know that my cupboards hold the most delicious chocolate tarts and vanilla yoghurts and raspberry jam.
I have started going for an evening run as the pavements are much less busy and the temperature is a lot nicer. I run down to the river and back and although it’s not far I feel like it’s an achievement when I can do it without stopping at all. I have also sacked off the lift here and force myself to climb all six floors to get to my room.
Thirdly, being without internet is very time consuming. I have to plan my web surfing and do everything at once, either in the bar around the corner where I am now known and accepted, or in McDonalds fifteen minutes away where I am hated for buying a Mcflurry and sitting there for three hours. Replying to the ten facebook messages that pop up, deleting half my emails and then trying to video call my friends and family over the noise around me, as well as researching things for class and finding info about Paris things is getting quite time consuming and difficult. The bank lady has ignored my emails and it doesn’t look as though I’m going to be getting a bank card (and therefore wifi) any time soon. Yay.
Part Five: realising that despite some obvious French administration flaws, you’re loving every single second.
I don’t need to explain this part. Over and Out.
If this type of experience appeals to you, view teaching jobs abroad.