British Council Assistantship

Salut mes chéris!

As I mentioned in my last post, I will be moving to France in September to become a Language Assistant for little French children, or not so little French teenagers, and I just wanted to explain the things I have done so far because up until now I have searched every documented piece of information about the year abroad to find out EVERYTHING, which has been made easier by the likes of Third Year Abroad, but one more blog post may contain the information that YOU want to know. 

*Imagine drifty windchime-esq flashback music HERE*

Around October time I created an account with the British Council and I had to fill in the application forms and hand them in at university by the end of November. The forms asked the obvious, such as Why would you be good as a Language Assistant? To the not-so-obvious How have you adapted to different cultures before? (What do I say to this?!)
Then followed the complete basics, i.e. Level of French, Name, D.O.B, bla bla bla.
THEN I had to pick three places where I wanted to live. This was hard. Firstly, it seemed that everyone knew that you picked 3 places, but at no point had anyone mentioned that these places were categorised. 

• In Group A there were a number of départements from the North of France. 
• In Group B there were places from around the centre of France.
• Group C contained the popular places, darn sarfff (South of France), Paris, and the DOMs.

From these groups, I had to pick one place from A, one from B and the third from ANY of the groups.
After this I had to decide the size of the place I wanted to move to, (city, small town or rural) and the age group that I wanted to teach.

I found it so hard to make any decisions, not only because one department seemed like the size of Wales, but I just had no idea where I wanted to go. So, after many nights on google images, searching for the prettiest places, I decided upon Rennes, Poitiers and Amiens (in that order). I also stated my preference to be a city, so that it's easy for people to visit, and I chose the age group 11-14. I did this because I want to teach in Secondary School eventually and I thought that this would be perfect experience. 

By December time I received an email saying that my application had been received, and by April I should know if I have been accepted. Right now it's a waiting game, but as soon as I know, I will pass on the news!

Goodbye for now

xx