In France there are private and state schools. This is about teaching in state schools.
ð There are two types of teachers: “qualified”
and “unqualified”. Unqualified teachers have a degree but
haven’t taken the French teaching exams. They are called contactuels (they have a contract for a set amount of weeks
or months, are paid on a monthly rate but not paid much); or vacataires (well
paid but by the hour and they can only do 200 hours in a school year). They are
taken on only when there is a place free and no qualified teacher is available. They mostly do replacement work (maternity
leave etc). You never know if and where you are going to work.
ð Qualified teachers have taken one of the teaching exams. There are two teaching exams, the
CAPES and the Agregation. With the CAPES, you are expected to do 18 hours in from of a class and with the Agreg, 15 hours
and you are paid more. However, the exam is much more difficult. With either, you can teach in any secondary school. This
means lycée or collège. Lycées are more difficult to get because there are fewer pupils in them. To work in a lycée professionnel,
you have to take a totally different exam and teach two subjects. However, as they are less popular, you have a better chance
of staying in your region.
ð Teachers who have passed these exams are called 'titulaires' and they are considered to be
civil servants (fonctionnaires). This means that once you have a job, you are employed for life. You can't be made redundant and the only way they can move you from a school is if you ask to go or if
they close your post. But even then it's the last person to arrive in the subject who leaves and they have to find you another
post. All this is very interesting but there are drawbacks; you can't decide to stop being a teacher for a while, do something
else and then come back to it. You'd have to retake your exams.
Obviously with everyone having their own post, this causes problems for replacements such as maternity leave, so some
'titulaires' don't actually have an allocated school but are held in reserve in a teaching zone for if they are needed. They
are called TZR (titulaire de zone de remplacement) Because they are titulaires they are paid even when they’re not working.
If the state can't find a TZR, then and only then, they look for unqualified teachers.
ð Once you're in, you're in; but getting in is the tough bit. In order to register
for the exams, you have to be either a French national or a member of the European Union (remember, they become civil servants)
and have a degree.
The
Exams
-You can prepare the CAPES or Agreg at the IUFM (I think there’s
an exam to get in now). Alternatively you can register as a "candidat libre" where you register for the exams in the
spring (autumn of the previous year) and then prepare at home. You can register with the CNED (Centre National d’Enseignement
à Distance) and use their lessons or just read the set books and turn up for the exams. You can also get the 'rapport du jury'
for each "epreuve" from the CNDP (Centre National de Documentation pedagogique) or download it from the siac2 website, which
shows you the year before's questions and how the examiners would have liked you to answer and what they didn't like.
The following is a rundown of the process for the CAPES exams. (The Agreg is similar but has more literary texts and
two civilisation topics. The orals similarly have specialisation areas in literature, civilisation and linguistics.)
ð The written exam for the CAPES takes place over three consecutive days in March/
April (epreuves d'admissibilite - this narrows down who will take the orals). There are
3 set literature books and a civilisation topic. There are three papers, one on each day. The first is a critical commentary
of a passage in English, about EITHER one of the books OR the civ topic. The idea is that they give you a quote
and you analyse it and discuss the whole topic/ text from that point of view. The second paper is an essay in French
about either civilisation or literature, whichever did NOT come up in the commentary exam. The third is a translation paper
with two tasks: English/ French and then French/English. Each paper lasts 4 hours. There is no choice in the questions. Everyone
in France takes the same questions at the same time but in their own academie. (Two weeks beforehand if you have registered
for the exams you will receive a "convocation" from your rectorat telling you when and where to go.) The whole exam is a university
level English exam. There are no questions on teaching.
-
Now you wait until May/ June to
see if you are accepted for the next stage which is the orals (epreuves d'admission). You can keep consulting the siac2 website
for updated information on your case, to see if you have been accepted and where and when the orals will be held (this information
is not published in advance). The orals go on for 3 or 4 weeks. They pick a letter and then call up everyone from that
letter onwards. There are 2 exams. The first is called the Epreuve sur Dossier. You receive a file of several documents (usually
two documents and a picture) and you have to provide a synthesis of the topics and make a presentation in English. There are
3 expressions underlined in one of the documents and you have to explain the grammar behind them (in French). The
grammar is university level English. After your presentation (which should last 30 minutes) you have another half-hour during
which there will be an interview in English and then a final short task, "comprehension et restitution" which consists of
listening to a two-minute recording in English and then reconstructing the essence of it in French.
- The second exam is all in French and changed in 2000
to the Epreuve Pre-Professionnelle sur Dossier. Yes, they like their dossiers... You need to examine a file of documents,
around 10 or more pages usually (taken from manuels scolaires, exercise books, or administrative documents about education)
and make a presentation in French analysing the topic. Your talk will last for about 30 minutes and is also followed by an
interview in French. This is the only part of the exam where they're interested in your teaching abilities. It is very much
a university style exam in the subject. It's only once you've passed that they worry about your teaching abilities, in your
second "practical" training year.
ð Next you have to take all your 'official' paperwork to the secretariat where they make sure
you actually were allowed to take the exam (with true French logic they do this after).
ð Now you go home and wait to the end of all the orals to see if you are 'admis'. Results
appear on the SIAC2 site as they are published (only successful candidates' names appear on the list). When you come
from an IUFM you then go on to do the second year (PCL2) in the same IUFM. If you were candidat libre, you have to be attached
to an IUFM where there is space for you. You can choose which one (you will be asked to express your six "voeux" in order
of preference just before the orals) but some are more popular than others.
If you passed the CAPES, you will have to look on the SIAL site (helping successful candidates figure out the next
steps) for the academie you have been attached to. You input your name and date of birth to find your results. They will provide
a link to your academie's IUFM but nobody tells you what to do next. It is VITAL that you then visit your allocated IUFM's
site and find out how to make your "voeux" for the four "communes" and two "departements" you want your practical training
to take part in (you will need to do six hours in a school weekly as well as two days in the IUFM). There is a deadline for
making these voeux. Some academies allow you to do it by internet (eg Lyon), and others require minitel access which these
days is becoming difficult (eg Montpellier).
ðThe second year is the stagiaire year. You work between 4 and 6 hours in a school and go
to the IUFM on two days a week. You also have to do a six week spell in a lycee or college depending on which one you're already
teaching in. You have a "memoire professionnel" to write. Only twenty odd pages so nothing to worry about really. Someone
from the IUFM comes to see you a couple of times and you have a tutor usually in the same school as you who comes to watch
you work from time to time and you go and watch him/ her. At the end of the year you are validated. It’s very rare that
someone isn’t. Then they usually have to redo their stagiaire year.
From the moment you are a stagiaire you are considered to be a 'titulaire' .
ðNow a few words of warning. Not to put you off, but so you will be prepared. A fully qualified teacher is a "fonctionnaire":
a civil servant. This means something in France. Fonctionnaires have a job for life; they can’t be made redundant and
they only way to get rid of them is is they do something illegal or a "faute professionnelle". BUT as a civil servant, they
can post you anywhere in France. The way it works is that once you have the CAPES, you apply to go to a list of academies
and then depending on how many points you have, they post you in one. Then inside that academie, you try to get a town/ region
you are interested in. Points are based on things like how long you’ve been teaching, years in a ZEP being separated
from your spouse (this is illegal in France would you believe!), number of children etc. Some academies are more poplular
than others. Most the ones in the south, Brittany and Alsace are hard to get into. Once you have an official posting (not
as a stagiaire) then you can stay there for ever if you want. Most new teachers have to accept that they will spend at least a year away from home, if not more.
