No Tomato Throwing Allowed

More positive developments this week. After putting myself through a total of 8 interviews in a period of a week, with 8 offers to choose from, I admittedly was in an enviable spot. Apparently English teaching is in high demand here! I accepted an offer yesterday at a language school for French professionals. I’ll teach adults who want to improve English skills for their respective jobs—spanning finance, fashion, tourism, and other industries. Gone are the days of 37 rambunctious 15 year olds (for now, anyway) – I’ll be teaching mostly one-on-one lessons, with some small group classes (a maximum of 6…don’t hate me, public school teachers). It’s a mobile job, as I’ll mostly be teaching my students offsite at their offices, with a weekly workday of teaching onsite at the school itself (very centrally located, right near the breathtaking Opera House). However, the schedule will be fairly set, so I’ll know my regular appointments through the year’s end and can thus build a routine. A lot of the places at which I interviewed have a similar m.o., but the school I chose really stood out due to the way its employees spoke about the organizational culture, the school’s philosophy on education, and the incredible perks (some of which are standard-issue French, others of which are unique to the school).

Speaking of perks, I don’t want to make all of you over in the States jealous. Remember that salaries here are indeed lower than in the US (although I’ll be able to make a decent contribution to my household). But I may have to rub it in, just a little bit. Here are the standard benefits an employee receives in France: 5 weeks of paid vacation, free healthcare (with nominal co-pays for prescriptions), 50% coverage of one’s monthly transportation pass (key for frequent Metro use), and daily meal vouchers (enough to buy a sandwich at most, but hey I’m not complaining). [My company also offers me a 10% hourly increase on all classes taught outside the city center, plus full reimbursement of my transportation costs outside the Metro zone.]

And if you thought that wasn’t enough, here’s an almost utopian perk: the government requires that companies earmark an annual budget to be spent on employee education related to the job. For instance, if I worked at a software development company and needed to improve my “full HTML” (TM DeFonso) skills, my company would pay for a class. Now, not every single employee reaps this benefit; in some companies, employees fight tooth and nail to be the chosen ones. But regardless of the internal competition and inherent elitism that could result, I think it’s wonderful that it’s a REQUIREMENT to spend money on this. In fact, it’s how I’m earning a living in France – all of my students are taking English classes to be covered by this very budget.

I’m so fortunate to also benefit from this budget at my own place of employment. The school has offered me free French lessons (with two other Anglophone employees), to be taught by one of its French teachers. C'est fantastique! I was planning on continuing my French studies, but now I have the convenience of taking the class at my workplace and not having to cough up tuition. The other great perk my employer has to offer is a vast array of teaching materials and resources that I can use to develop my lessons. I have a toolkit of secondary-school vocab, grammar, and writing strategies I can recycle, but teaching business English has its own new set of challenges. I’m grateful to have a library available to me to minimize planning.

Teaching adults should be fascinating and worlds apart from teaching teenagers. I get to capitalize on one of the things I love the most about the profession, which is the intense interaction with individuals. I’ll get many perspectives on life in France and insight into industries and work culture that I wouldn’t get otherwise. I’m going to miss out on the joys of discipline (oh boo), but also on the hilarity that can only come from a group of 30+ adolescents trapped in a room together for one hour. They just say the funniest things, and my stand-up routine about it was just starting to build momentum. I’ll have to settle for the vicarious tales from abroad…unless these Frenchies give me some new brand of comedy gold. (BTW, El Camino people – I’ve been thinking of you since the new school year began and hope the honeymoon period lasts a very, very long time. Please send my love to the juniors.)

I officially start on the 17th, taking next week to do some planning. I agreed to teach a one-off lesson Monday morning, so I have to do a smidgen of advance work, but it’ll be good to get my feet wet. I haven’t worked in three months due to the heavenly summer break of the school calendar, and I’m rusty on the whole “show up somewhere at a particular time and be in charge of doing some stuff” thing…Yeah, I’ve done enough gloating for one day, so I better end here before you all hurl produce at your monitors in disgust .