Things to Consider Before Accepting a Position with TAPIF

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to the assistants de langue program, also known as TAPIF. It’s exciting news and a big deal, but try not to get caught up in the glamor of living your French dream. Moving abroad and doing TAPIF are both big decisions and need to be thought about pragmatically. Here are a few things to consider before you accept your job offer:

1) The Money

The TAPIF salary is famously low and moving to France (or any new country) is not a cheap endeavor. The American TAPIF handbook recommends arriving in France with at least $2,000 USD and that really is the bare minimum. I personally arrived with a little under $4,000 from savings (and was moving in with my partner) and this is what I personally would consider a better minimum. Obviously, the more you bring, the more comfortable you will be, so try to bring at least 3-4,000 of your own personal savings. If you are going to be living in Paris, you definitely need to budget for more. Also, keep in mind that TAPIF is not a program where people leave with a lot of money. There is a very low likelihood that you will earn back the savings that you brought with you. Outside of Paris, you can survive off the TAPIF salary (pay rent and bills, buy groceries, etc), but you will not be living a very luxurious lifestyle, at least not with the money you earn from teaching. Things like the Assurance Maladie or tha CAF can make your paycheck go farther, but getting registered and set with both of them takes a lot of time, so it shouldn’t be something you include in your budget right away.

Ask yourself if you currently have the savings or a concrete plan to earn some cash the summer before you leave. Calculate exactly how much money you would have in your bank account once you get on the plane and start calculating all of your costs to get yourself settled. If your finances start not adding up, you should either start drastically changing your plans prior to leaving or seriously consider not doing the program.

2) Your Level of French

This one seems almost stupidly obvious, but you need to make sure that you are able to speak French at least conversationally. I’ve heard stories of people getting in by having a French friend write their application and arrive in France speaking not a word of French. This doesn’t help you in the long run. The American program requires a minimum B1 level of French, but the better you speak and understand the language, the better you will be. You will need to communicate with your coworkers that are not foreign language teachers, your school secretary, and the principal/vice-principal. Outside of the work environment, you’ll need to be able to talk to your landlord if anything goes wrong in your apartment, talk to people in stores, get your bank account set up, and so much more. In a worst-case scenario, would you be able to call an ambulance for yourself in French if you got hurt?

Ask yourself if you have the necessary level of French to do all of these things. You don’t necessarily need to know all the niche vocabulary words, but being able to understand and be understood is essential. If a quick vocab translation wouldn’t solve most of your French communication problems, ask yourself if you are ready to live in France with little to no support in doing things that are necessary for your daily life.

3) The Worst-Case Scenario

Most assistants are able to end up living in at least small cities with transit and some other assistants, however there is a slight chance that you may end up in a small rural town alone as the only foreigner. Are you ready for that to be your reality? What would you do if you got your arrêté de nomination and saw only small town schools?

The majority of the time, professeurs référents and conseillers pédagogiques are friendly and competent. Sometimes people even get very lucky and become friends with their prof ref or other coworkers. However, sometimes people get very unlucky and have prof refs and school administrators that are unhelpful and don’t want to do their jobs. Are you ready to stand up for yourself in French and/or not be too reliant on your prof ref? Be prepared for any possibility.  

4) Your Mental Health

Moving to France can seem like a great way to start your life over and it can be in many ways, but it is also a huge challenge. Leaving behind everything you’ve ever known and your friends and family can be debilitating, not to mention the fact that even going to the grocery store is now ten times harder than back home. If your mental health is not good at home, it will only get worse in France.

Before you make plans to leave, make sure you have plans to keep in meaningful contact with your support system. Ask yourself if you are ready to move to a new city alone, where you don’t know anyone. Plan how you will make friends in a new place, without counting on having other language assistants in town. If you can anticipate where you will struggle and set up structures to keep yourself happy and healthy, the better off you will be! (This also includes bringing any necessary mental-health medication that may not be available in France)

Manage Your Expectations

This article might come off as a bit of a downer; I don’t intend it to deter anyone from the program (unless it’s not the right path for you). I’ve definitely had a great time in France and with TAPIF, but I owe a lot of my success to expectation management. I’ve seen a lot of assistants not educate themselves enough about the different placements in the program and then end up disappointed and frustrated when they get placed in a smaller city than they expected. By not being prepared for where they may be placed, they were caught unawares and weren’t prepared.

I made myself aware of the “worst-case” scenarios that could happen to me and made an educated choice about whether I would still be happy doing the program in those conditions. Ultimately, I decided that I still would be and started making plans for how I would react for certain situations. This has helped me to be actually happy and put my challenges here into perspective.

In this article, I have used the phrase “Ask yourself” a lot, hoping that my questions will help you reflect more on whether TAPIF is the right choice for you. As a prospective assistant, I encourage you to be excruciatingly honest with yourself and take the time to do your research and prepare yourself as much as you can.

Other Resources

This video from The Francofile (whose own blog and YouTube channel is a gold mine for TAPIF advice!) was really helpful for me when I was first considering applying for TAPIF and helped me with a lot of my own expectation management.