France - English Version

More than quite nice, actually...
My stint as an English teacher in France was without a doubt the most enriching year of my life. That said, I would highly recommend anyone who is into teaching, who appreciates French culture and is looking for an enriching experience to apply for frenchculture.org's English Teaching Assistantship Program.

English Teaching Assistantship Program in France

In December of 2005, I went to www.frenchculture.org and applied for a year-long English teaching assistant position to public schools in France. The following spring, I was offered the position and told in which department I had been placed (according to my top three choices of region), and in September I was headed to my teaching post in a town called Fleurance in the South of France. I was received by the program's coordinator for my department (the Gers) and taken to the home of my school's principle and his kind family, where I stayed for my first few days. I eventually moved in with another English teacher from my program into a two-bedroom apartment in the préfecture of the department about 20 kilometers away from my school and ended up having a fabulous year with her and the friends we made. I had a wonderful time teaching, not without its ups and downs, of course – eight to ten-year-old students can be quite a handful! They were darling children and I feel like I really taught them something.

Living in Auch was an adventure and a comfort at the same time. I grew to love it. France was filled with other English teaching assistants from my program from all over the U.S., Canada, England as well as other anglophone countries with whom we were put into contact even before we landed in France (which was how I met my flat mate). Through my program I also met teaching assistants of other languages and from all over the world -- Italy, Germany, Columbia, Ecuador, Africa. I was lucky to have met people doing the same thing I was with whom I could share my "French" experience as well as ideas and customs from different parts of the world. I still correspond with a dear friend of mine who has since returned to her native Ecuador.

I also doubt my experience would have been as amazing had I landed somewhere other than the Gers, because then I would never have had the help of L'Association Rose des Vents to orient me and better acquaint me with the region and its people.

L'Association Rose des Vents

"Rose des Vents” means "Compass Rose." L'Association Rose des Vents is an association of the department of the Gers that a young dormitory supervisor founded in October of 2005, which was, as luck would have it, near the beginning of my stay in the Gers. The Association’s goal is to orient foreigners who come to the region on exchange, either through work or through studies -- though anyone who wants to can join. The club also comprises French folk who want to have an enjoyable exchange with people from other countries and who want to help them to better enjoy their stay in France. L'Association Rose des Vents has organized trips to festivals, castles and other interesting sites in the Midi-Pyrénées region, as well as trips to the lake for rowing and to the mountains for skiing and snow-shoeing. And when the Association is not organizing trips, it is organizing soirées (dinners/parties). Monia, the club's founder, says she came up with the idea of the club after having taken part in a similar teaching assistantship program in a town in southern Italy, where she taught French for a year and felt that it would have been more enjoyable if there had been an association there to show her around and help her get to get to know the Italian people and culture better.

So, if you are a foreigner and suddenly find yourself in the Gers with no sense of what's what or what's interesting to do, or if you would like to meet local people with whom you can have a cultural exchange, please visit the club’s website at http://www.rosedesvents-gers.fr.

And if you have any questions about the English Teaching Assistantship program in France, please don't hesitate to contact me. It truly is the experience of a lifetime.

Best regards,
Sonya

Click HERE to enter the official site for
l'Association Rose des Vents

L'Association Rose des Vents
February 2006 trip to the castle at Carcassone
and the Midi Canal

From left: Maline, ?, Sofia (Ecuador), myself, Cosima (Germany), Kate (U.S.), Claudia (Columbia), Chiara (Italy), Monia (France), Dinécia (Haiti/U.S.)