How to become a French Language assistant in the UK

THIS is a great question. I did well when I decided to study in Nanterre. Indeed, though I don't especially like some of the professors or worse, some members of the administration, there is a good partnership between the university and the British Council. The first step was, as I told in the previous article, to RAISE MY HAND UP!!! So that then, I was given the time and the room for the meeting between the professor responsible for the assistants, an assistant who worked in Northern Ireland the year before, and the students who wanted to escape to go abroad for a year as a language assistant. The meeting took place in November. When the teacher talked about living abroad and mentioned Edinburgh, I had tears in my eyes. She was kind of describing a dream!

Then, in December, we had to write a letter of introduction to describe ourselves to the British Council and our future employer. In this case, if YOU, reader, wants to go abroad to work, I advise you to be honest. I wrote that I did drama when I was younger, then I studied cinema, and I could speak French and German. We don't have German at the school I work in, but the name of the school is "King James community Art and College", in which the word "Art" is quite important as the kids study drama, music, art, design, media... The three years I spent studying cinema have been useful for me as the student in sixth form had to work on Truffaut and la Nouvelle Vague. So, DON'T LIE on your CV or you could end up giving a hand during a Japanese lesson!

After the Christmas break, we had an interview with the professor in touch with the British Council, just to make sure that we were both motivated and good at English, because we were about to live on our own in a country we did not know. Then, we had to ask a professor to write a letter of recommendation including what she or he thinks about us, our level of English (again) and our motivation (again). When everything was OK, just PRINT EVERYTHING - obviously, my printer died the day before I had to give my folder to the professor. That's just because I'm lucky...

In the middle of January, I finally managed to give everything to the office staff. I was glad. But as I'm lucky ( hahaha), I went to the office the day before the deadline. Once again, I did well. The fact is that they had lost my folder. It was an emergency to meet the professor who works with the British Council to explain her my problem, then to find the professor who wrote the letter of recommendation to write another one, to print everything again... And January was also the month of the exams I had to revise (a lot) for, and I worked as a cashier at the same time, and the sales are in January in France and I did additional hours... I told you, I'm lucky.

Three days after all the papers were sent to the British Council, I've been informed that my folder had been found... not to go to Great Britain, but to another continent. Well, it would have been great to visit Canada or Australia, but that's not really what I asked for... long live the noobs!

APRIL was the month we - the assistants-to-be- were all waiting for. I don't know how many times I pressed "F5" to read the mail by the British Council. We knew we would receive the mail at the end of April. I will always remember this day: 28th of April. Grey sky. I was watching the last episode of Desperate Housewives on megaupload ( R.I.P.)  in an empty room at the university when it was finally time for a break. I went out to join the girls, when Emily told me "I received the email, I've been accepted by the Council!". I like my friends but I had to leave to check my own emails. I didn't have the mail. F5. Nothing. F5. Still nothing. F5 F5 F5 F5 F5. Nothing again. F5: THE mail!!! I was so so so relieved! I called my mother, my boyfriend, texted most of my friends, posted it on Face Book... There is always someone to ruin your happiness. One of my "friend" ( this social network makes me laugh sometimes...) felt the need to say that "Scotland is not sexy" (WTF dude? I live in England!). Now, I don't care. Screw you guys, I'm happy! :-)

JUNE was the month I received an email by the head of the Modern Foreign Language department, Anna. How could I describe Anna... She is great! She sent me a mail to introduce herself, the school, and what my job will be about. I only read what she wrote, but at this moment, she seems to be very friendly. I compared my situation with the other assistants: most of them received a formal letter by the post, telling them the address of the school, the term of the contract they had to sign, and that's all. Anna told me how the school worked, what the dress code was ( "something smart, but casual ;-)"  ) and she helped me to find a room to rent in September... I liked her already :-)

So now you know you have to be very patient -from November to June- if you want to be a foreign language assistant! I can tell you it's a year I will never forget!