You've Decided to do TAPIF. What Next?

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) and after some thoughtful reflection, you’ve decided to do the program. The wait time between getting your acceptance and your arrêté de nomination can feel like a long and empty time sink, but there is still lots you can do to prepare yourself for your year abroad.

1) Keep some proof of your acceptance and your confirmation of your position!

This will be the first in a long line of French bureaucracy instincts that you will need to acquire. Whenever you come across a document or a piece of information on a website that is important, you keep a record of it and if it’s a physical document, you make copies. That means definitely do NOT delete the email that says you were accepted. During my cohort, we had to click on a link in that email to confirm that we were accepting our position. This link brought us to a website that said that our confirmation was complete, but didn’t send us a confirmation email. You should definitely make a record of this page, either by screenshotting or saving the webpage as a PDF. Later on during my year, there was a bug and some people who had confirmed their positions weren’t on record as having done so. By keeping a record of their acceptance and confirmation, they were later able to solve the issue and do the program. For everyone’s sake, I hope that TAPIF has fixed this bug, but by keeping records, you’ll have covered all your bases in case anything ever goes wrong.

2) Complete and submit your Background Check (done through the FBI for Americans)

The specifics of this requirement change based on your home country and may change a little every year, so make sure to read the instructions from your local TAPIF authority. However, in general this is a step that must be done by the end of June and involves getting your fingerprints done. You’ll receive a report on your criminal history and will have to submit this to TAPIF. If you do not do this, you cannot be cleared to work with children and therefore won’t be able to do the program.

3) Read your handbook

I know that reading the handbook can seem like a daunting task, since it’s over 40 pages long, but it’s actually pretty simple. There is a general Assistants de langue handbook in French published every year by France Education Internationale and there is also a handbook for Americans published by the TAPIF office every year in English. I would recommend reading at least one. The American handbook is around 40 pages, but is honestly pretty easy to read, especially since there’s large parts of it that are just bulleted lists. In it, they also give step by step instructions for how to fill out your visa applications, so it’s very helpful. Over the course of my year with TAPIF, I saw so many assistants ask questions in the Facebook groups and Discords even though the answer was in one or both of the handbooks. If for some reason you really don’t want to read the handbook, at least skim it to know what it talks about so that you can go to specific sections when you need them later. You can also search the document using ctrl+f to find specific information. At the end of the day, you need to be responsible for yourself and informing yourself. If you rely solely on the Facebook and Discord groups to figure things out, not only are you empowering your own ignorance, but you may not even get the right advice since sometimes other people are wrong.

4) Join the social media groups for your cohort

This one may seem a bit ironic considering my previous list item, but as long as you don’t rely solely on the social media groups, they can be a great resource and support system. There is a longstanding TAPIF subreddit, and every cohort usually has a Facebook group and sometimes a Discord server. There are also usually groups made for individual académies that you can join as well. These groups can help you get in touch with alums, returning assistants, and other newcomers.

5) Educate yourself about your Académie

One of the best parts about TAPIF is that you get to explore places in France that aren’t as well-known. Obviously you won’t know exactly where you’ll be living until you get your arrêté de nomination, but I would recommend doing some research on the cities in your Académie. Make sure you look beyond just the city your Académie is named after and learn about some smaller cities too. I looked at average rent and cost of living in various cities around my Académie before getting my placement. I would also recommend looking for things like airports and TGV (Train à grande vitesse/high-speed train) stations, so you know where you might need to go to reach your home. I would also recommend knowing what region(s) of France your Académie is in, and once you get your arrêté, the département (which is similar to a US county).

Outside of the practical side of things, understanding the basic geography of my Académie helped me think about places that I may want to visit and helped me feel like I understood more about the area. Learning about regional customs and food specialties also will help you know what to try.

6) Gather important documents that you’ll need in France

Even though you don’t have your arrêté yet, you can still start gathering documents you’ll need for your visa appointment and for various bureaucratic things like applying for the CAF, the Assurance Maladie, etc. You need your passport, of course, and I would also recommend bringing two original (aka notarized) copies of your birth certificate. I would also recommend getting birth certificates that are recently notarized, if possible. The TAPIF handbook recommends the website VitalChek to order birth certificates, but I would recommend reaching out to your local authorities (your home state, if you’re American) to see if they have them on hand. In my home state of Massachusetts, the city where you were born and where you have a permanent residence are required to keep your birth certificate on file at their city hall, so I got mine from city hall and they ended up being much cheaper than VitalChek. I would also recommend printing out a copy of your most recent US tax return. Make sure that any documents that you’d need for online applications you plan on doing during the year (such as grad school) are saved to your computer. This includes high school and university diplomas, university transcripts, and language exam certifications, if you have them. I also made sure I had scans of my passport and the front and back of my state ID.

I also made physical copies of my passport info page, any page in my passport with a stamp, and the front and back of my state ID. I personally didn’t bother with translating any of my documents, including my birth certificate, to French and didn’t end up needing to.

7) Work with your doctors to anticipate your medical needs

Somewhat in line with #6, I would recommend getting a copy of your medical records from your doctors, just in case you end up having a medical emergency in France. If you have a specific health issue, I would also ask the doctor that treats you for it to write a summary of your medical needs and medication. I did this and when I was seeing a doctor in France for a check-up, it was helpful to hand it over to my new doctor.

More concretely, it’s important to do research on the medication you take and find alternatives in France. If your medication is not available, work with your medical providers to either find an alternative or plan on how to bring enough with you to France. If you’re unsure of where to start, I have a whole article on the French healthcare system.

8) Read up on TAPIF experiences

Getting started with TAPIF can sometimes feel like you’re diving headfirst into the unknown, which is a little bit terrifying. I found that reading TAPIF blogs helped me feel a lot more prepared. The Francofile has a lot of practical information about TAPIF, but I also liked reading more laid-back blogs where people talked about their daily lives as well. There are also a wealth of TAPIF YouTube channels. Plus, you can ask returning assistants and alums about their experiences in the social media groups.

Doing all of this will help you feel so much more ready before you leave for France and will set you up for success once your plane lands in your new home. TAPIF is a really exciting opportunity and you will get the most out of it if you’re prepared and ready.