Hello everyone! I don't know if anyone can help me with this situation, but I figure it's worth a shot.
Before moving to France to be with my husband, I was a French teacher in the US. As a student, I spent a couple years in France, so between that, using French daily in the classroom, and speaking to my now-husband regularly in French, my French abilities were one less thing that worried me.
However, my real issue has been trying to find work as a teacher in France (no surprise, I knew it wasn't going to be a cakewalk). I already have things working against me, as I am living in a small town where 60-70% here work as fonctionnaires, so if you aren't one yourself, you're basically stuck working at Leclerc.
Of course, one of the main issues is that if you want to be a teacher in a public school here, you have to pass the concours, which I don't even have access to, being a non-EU foreigner. Then there's the hassle degree recognition. Despite my having a master's degree in Foreign Language Education, INFREP said they couldn't hire me as an FLE instructor because my degree is too "general" and that OFII will only accept degrees which are specifically FLE oriented (complete nonsense, but ok). I am still waiting on ENIC NARIC to get back to me with my degree equivalencies.
If I want to work in private schools, well, I am still facing a similar problem. They say that they will accept non-EU foreigners, but you still need to pass the concours first, which I don't get how I could, considering that it isn't open to non-EU foreigners.
In any case, since my conseiller pôle emploi suggested it, I had a meeting with someone about VAE (validation des acquis et des expériences). With said work experience, she said that I could definitely proceed to get what would be considered a licence in FLE, which would be great. We also talked about me possibly doing a 9 month program which would give me a bac + 5 masters in teaching English in France. While the former would be great so I could at least get started possibly working, I would also like to do the latter, because then I could obviously much more easily get a full time job teaching English in schools. However, the problem comes up again - even if I do do that, I'm not going to be able to do anything with it for several years. My husband and I got married a little over a year ago, and can't apply for citizenship until 2016.
Sorry if this is a bit all over the place. It's just been very frustrating as I'm now hitting over a year without working, and I've never been this long without a job. Here are the two sites where I found information:
Questions / Réponses - Recrutement
Session 2014 : conditions d'inscription au Cafep - Capes - Ministère de l'Éducation nationale
I have been trying to get in touch with people, but it looks like I may have to wait until Monday, because I guess they are on vacation.
Thanks again for any help. Cannot tell you how much I appreciate the people on here!
Before moving to France to be with my husband, I was a French teacher in the US. As a student, I spent a couple years in France, so between that, using French daily in the classroom, and speaking to my now-husband regularly in French, my French abilities were one less thing that worried me.
However, my real issue has been trying to find work as a teacher in France (no surprise, I knew it wasn't going to be a cakewalk). I already have things working against me, as I am living in a small town where 60-70% here work as fonctionnaires, so if you aren't one yourself, you're basically stuck working at Leclerc.
Of course, one of the main issues is that if you want to be a teacher in a public school here, you have to pass the concours, which I don't even have access to, being a non-EU foreigner. Then there's the hassle degree recognition. Despite my having a master's degree in Foreign Language Education, INFREP said they couldn't hire me as an FLE instructor because my degree is too "general" and that OFII will only accept degrees which are specifically FLE oriented (complete nonsense, but ok). I am still waiting on ENIC NARIC to get back to me with my degree equivalencies.
If I want to work in private schools, well, I am still facing a similar problem. They say that they will accept non-EU foreigners, but you still need to pass the concours first, which I don't get how I could, considering that it isn't open to non-EU foreigners.
In any case, since my conseiller pôle emploi suggested it, I had a meeting with someone about VAE (validation des acquis et des expériences). With said work experience, she said that I could definitely proceed to get what would be considered a licence in FLE, which would be great. We also talked about me possibly doing a 9 month program which would give me a bac + 5 masters in teaching English in France. While the former would be great so I could at least get started possibly working, I would also like to do the latter, because then I could obviously much more easily get a full time job teaching English in schools. However, the problem comes up again - even if I do do that, I'm not going to be able to do anything with it for several years. My husband and I got married a little over a year ago, and can't apply for citizenship until 2016.
Sorry if this is a bit all over the place. It's just been very frustrating as I'm now hitting over a year without working, and I've never been this long without a job. Here are the two sites where I found information:
Questions / Réponses - Recrutement
Session 2014 : conditions d'inscription au Cafep - Capes - Ministère de l'Éducation nationale
I have been trying to get in touch with people, but it looks like I may have to wait until Monday, because I guess they are on vacation.
Thanks again for any help. Cannot tell you how much I appreciate the people on here!