#tapif

[round-trip-travel]

How to Plan a TAPIF America-Themed Lesson

Following college graduation, I took the leap of faith to move abroad and spend a year teaching English with the TAPIF program. It was originally supposed to be a gap year, but I ended up teaching for two years as well as au pairing for a summer and landing a full-time job afterward. Even though I saw teaching as a temporary gig, I really enjoyed teaching at several elementary schools in…

[readingloveswounds]

constantly being told by my advisor to not quote so much in french (and instead paraphrase and footnote) which i HATE but it's FINE i guess. at first i couldn't figure out why it's such a struggle but having thought about it, it's 100% because in undergrad i only wrote in french (as the dept required), so when i got to grad school and started writing french papers in english i was like of course i can just put a french quote in here no problem. and no one brought it up tILL NOW

[thisisnotadiehardmovie]

A játszadozó ember. Itt amúgy sok múzeumban van kirakva tapifal, ahol festménytextúrákat lehet taperolni és az egyik legkirályabb dolog ever.

I’m very excited for my latest craft experiment, where I rhythmically slap sale rank oil paint onto a canvas and I see how long it takes to dry so that I can finally touch the paint textures I stare at so longingly in museums. 12 hours in, still wet. I am beginning to think this might take longer than I thought which you can imagine is quite a burden, as I am absolutely horned up to rub this paint.

[invizigothx]

some other tapif assistants are going to the aquarium in the neighbor city this weekend and i feel like? guilty? bc I'm not going out and doing drinks on fridays and weekend trips on saturdays. reasons why i'm not Going Out a) I have a Dog to care for. b) I'm trying to be frugal (maybe I wouldn't need to be so frugal if I didn't have a Dog??) c) I keep myself so busy (maintaining a very clean apartment; music; art; translation; Dog; etc) so I feel guilty for having a Dog, for having a Dog with separation anxiety, for having vague obligations re: translating this book, for not feeling more upset about not doing things, for not taking advantage of the opportunity....................... and, on the other hand, I don't feel terribly interested in spending time w the other assistants.... and I guess it's OK if my time here is 80% living a normal life and 20% ooh la la tourist activities.

[studywithisabel]

i’m officially going to france as an assistant de langue!!

[pompadourpink]

i’m considerinng becoming a TAPIF and i’m curious what parts of france you’d say are 1. most cost effective 2. have good public transport 3. pretty denseley populated but not paris level populated ? sorry if this is kind of a vague question i just have no idea where to start :) merci

Hello,

For starters: very populated areas are obviously in big cities, so while being cost-effective, life will not be cheap.

A TAPIF receives an allowance of €785 a month and gets French social security, i.e. the doctor won’t cost much (ex: a visit to a GP is 25 euros, you can either pay 25 and get back 30 to 70% directly on your bank account or just ask to only pay the tiers payant and pay €7,50 as you’re a student). Meds are pretty cheap, the most expensive things I paid for recently were a muscle relaxer and iron supplements, about €10 each (about €3 for painkillers).

As a student in Lille I got much less than €785 a month and still lived correctly as you get a number of advantages (super cheap public transport, CAF help, discounts in stores, hair salons, theatres; museums are free, etc). In terms of living arrangements, I would suggest you find a roommate (on French Craigslist) as rent for a studio is about €500; then you’ve got internet/mobile (€25ish), energy (€30ish), home insurance (€5ish). And then public transport, food, extra. So living by yourself would be hard.

I found Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, to have great public transport; but in the end, I think you should be thinking about the kind of daily life you’re looking for. Don’t think of France as a smaller version of the US: the country is divided into smaller parts which each have a ‘capital’ but it’s still Paris VS anywhere else. What changes from one city to the other is the architecture, weather, food, local slang, and that’s about it, emphasis on the weather. I’m cold-blooded and have lived my entire life in the North: when I visited Marseille for the first time, in the middle of summer, I nearly caught on fire; send someone from the South in Lille, next to the Belgian border, and they’ll freeze; also, the air is humid, not dry, and that makes a huge difference - in the winter, it’s not as cool as it could be in Minnesota in terms of degrees, but the cold is so wet it feels like your bones are rusting.

Think also about your hobbies: where I live, we don’t have much nature so you wouldn’t like it if you’re a hiker, for example. If you like surfing, go for Bordeaux; if you’re a climber, you’d love Savoie, etc.

Also, I wouldn’t recommend you aim for the South (let’s say under Agen or Montauban) as I’ve heard a number of American students get an accent du sud after spending some time there for school and that’s definitely not standard (and makes you harder to understand).

Hope this helps! x

[vangoghs-other-ear]

What do you people think of tapif?

If you are/were a tapif language assistant or you are/were a french student with a foreign language assistant at your school what are/were your experiences?

Étudiant.es et ancien.ne étudient.es fraçais.es qu’est-ce que c’est votre avis sur les assistants de langue étrangers dans vos écoles ? Vos expériences ?

[worththeway]

It's been a month already?! A month since I moved to this city in the middle of a pandemic! I can't believe I get to call Tours my home for now. I remember sitting in my A1 level french class at alliance française when I was 16 and dreaming about being a part of this program. My professor at the time was talking about how she traveled to France to work as an assistante de langue when she was 24 and had the best time of her life. she'd tell us stories about her travels, the people she'd met, the friends she had made, and the amazing students she'd had.

Back then I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life (I mean I still don't), I didn't know where I wanted to go for university or what I wanted to major in but sitting in that class learning a language I had fallen in love with I thought to myself that well, now I have one thing I know for sure I want to do in the future after university. And I'm here, and it's happening. Even though there is a lockdown going on and I cant travel around, I'm still grateful that I got here, that I get to work for now and that I get to live the dream of the 16-year-old me.

[round-trip-travel]

19 Primary School Lesson Ideas for TAPIF

Best songs, books, games, activities — you name it! After two years of teaching English in France with the TAPIF program, I've rounded up my best primary school lesson ideas.

What’s great about the TAPIF program is that you don’t need ample teaching credentials to teach English in France. And what’s not so great about the TAPIF is exactly that. I graduated from my university with a double major in journalism and French. I had no experience teaching English as a foreign language before I moved to France with the TAPIF program. In hopes of being in southern France…

[ramblinganthropologist]

So, uh...

Anyone do TAPIF?

[athousandsplendidsuns]

à partir de lundi prochain toutes les écoles, y compris les facs, seront fermées indéfiniment... donc ça veut dire qu’il faut que je reste à charleville indéfiniment? non je préférais mourrir merci

[fearlessandanxious]

I suppose there are worse places to be quarantined...

[minnow-farfelue]

Life updates, for anyone that doesn't know yet: I live in France now! I'll be here until April, I'm an assistant teaching French kids English! So far it's been very stressful getting settled in, but I'm feeling optimistic for this year!

[nic-and-annie-in-france]

French Class at the Croix Rouge

In December, after much effort, I finally signed up for a French class through the Red Cross in our town. In October, after a couple of weeks of settling in, we decided that it was time for me to sign up. We looked up the opening hours of the Red Cross and planned to go on Thursday morning just as Annie left school for lunch. 

On Thursday morning, we found a room of second-hand clothes for sale, but no classes. It turned out that their store space and meeting space had two separate entrances. The room for classes was dark and empty. To sign up for a class, according to the cashier in the store, we would need to come back next Thursday before 11:00. Annie works Thursday until 11:00. Since that wasn’t an option for Annie, we decided to try going back the following Wednesday evening, the other time period listed on the Red Cross website. The building was dark and locked, again, on Wednesday evening.

Two weeks had now passed since our decision to try to get me signed up, and the next week was the last week before fall break. Even if I signed up that first week, I would have to miss the next two because we would be traveling. I talked Annie into putting it off until after we get back from break.

We went to the Red Cross for a third time after our break. We approached the building and the lights were on. That was a good sign. There were people inside. That was an even better sign. We timidly opened the door and offered our bonjours to the two older ladies sitting inside. Annie explained that I’m wanting to sign up for a French Class. One of the ladies informed us that the person in charge of adding new people to classes was not there that day but she gave us the number of the person we needed to contact and took down Annie’s number to pass it along to the right person.

A week went by. We waited. We didn’t hear anything. It was decided that I will go alone on Thursday to sign up while Annie was at work. I psyched myself up. I wrote a script. I went over the script again and again. I was feeling confident. I set off for the Red Cross.

The person in charge was there! I explained in broken French that I wanted to sign up for a French class. I was warmly received and placed in a weekly class with a few people from Brazil. The instructor herself is Brazilian, but has lived in France for the past 15 years. She speaks both Brazilian Portuguese and English (in addition to French)!

----

It’s a beginner course. While I already know a lot of what we’re covering, it’s helpful to go over it again and practice my pronunciation, especially those tricky Us and Rs. One surprisingly helpful thing I learned was the phrase, “Et avec ceci ?” which literally means, “And with this?” but is used by a vendor to verify that you are ready to be rung up. The week I learned “Et avec ceci ?”, Annie and I went to the farmer’s market in town to buy groceries for the first time.

We found some wonderful sweet potatoes that were the just right serving size and still covered in dirt. The vendor weighed the potatoes and asked, “Et avec ceci ?” Annie, who was unfamiliar with this expression, was visibly thrown off guard and asked the man to repeat himself. I knew what he meant! But Annie was handling the interactions with each vendor and I was not expecting to have to speak any French other than the compulsory bonjour or pardon. So when the opportunity arose for me to engage in the conversation, I clammed up. But hey, at least I understood what was going on!

The class isn’t intensive by any means, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to each week. Everyone is really friendly and despite our three different languages, we laugh a lot. With the lockdown and uncertainty of the coronavirus, I’m not sure if we’ll have class again before Annie and I leave France, but I’m happy to have had the experience all the same. I am proud to have carved out a little place for me in Aix.

[frenchmajorlife]

I've been in France 3 weeks

It has been three weeks since I arrived in France. Coincidentally, it's also my birthday. Hello, 23! Things aren't perfect, but they're good (and certainly better than when I first arrived). I have a place to live, and while I wasn't initially hoping to live with a family, I think that this might be a really good situation to be in. The family is lovely and their house is beautiful. It's a little further from town than I wanted to be, but there's a bus stop close by. I also get to speak French everyday! This is probably the best opportunity to improve my French.

I also have a great work schedule, and the teachers at one of my schools want me to eat lunch with them when I'm there. Most of the administrative things that I was so worried about have been taken care of. Now, it's just a matter of getting paid, figuring out what to do with my *abundant* free time, and finally starting to settle into a routine.

[acekatherineplumber]

Okay everyone today’s the day! I have a HUGE announcement! In exactly one month, I will be boarding a plane leaving out of Dulles, VA. Why? Where am I going? Excellent questions! I have been offered a job as a teaching assistant in FRANCE next school year through a program called TAPIF. I will be working in a middle school and a high school in a relatively small town located about 2 hours south of Rouen and 1.5 hours west of Paris. I will be teaching English! I can’t believe that I get the chance to do this, and that I get to use my degree right out of college. I have been sitting on this news for a while. I applied for the program around the beginning of January after spending the fall getting my application together. I found out that I had been accepted in April, literally the day before I went to go present my senior thesis at a conference. I got my contract at the end of June, and my visa in late July. I will probably be starting a new blog for my adventures! Keep an eye out for that! I literally cannot believe it. One month to go!