Resources for Teaching Assistant Program In France (TAPIF)

Resources for Teaching Assistant Program In France (TAPIF)

Explore our collection of free resources, and prepare for your assistantship in France.

The contributions of teaching assistants are essential to sustaining vibrant, high-quality language instruction at all levels.

To support your journey into teaching English in France, Villa Albertine has curated a selection of training opportunities and free pedagogical resources. Teaching abroad is also not just about vocabulary and grammar. It’s about navigating diverse perspectives, understanding cultural nuances, and fostering respectful, informed dialogue across cultures.

  1. Onboarding and Training: Teaching Assistants and New Teachers
  2. Teaching Across Cultures
  3. English Teaching Materials
  4. Next Steps

1. Onboarding and Training: Assistants and New Teachers

  • France Education International Online Platform: FEI+

The Department of Language Assistants and Mobility at France Education International has developed a short (3-hour), online, free, and badge-awarding training modules: FEI+: Se préparer aux fonctions d’assistant de langue française

Do not hesitate to visit the rest of the FEI+ platform, it contains various courses, and pedagogical resources.

 

  • Académies Communication (Regional School Districts in France)

The Académies (regional school districts in France) can have their own communication and resources for both teachers and teaching assistants. For example:

 

  • CANOPé, the Educational Resource and Training Arm of the French Education System

CANOPé offers online training, podcasts, and videos for teachers.

For teaching assistants and new teachers, we identified the following resources specifically relevant for your journey:

    • A gamified training with three episodes, “I’ve received my assignment!,” “I’m discovering my school,” and “My first hour of teaching.”
    • A series with several modules to help you explore and deepen your understanding of communication, co-education, collaboration, assessment, and motivation. New teachers do not always have time to reflect on these aspects when starting out, yet human relationships are at the heart of the teaching profession.
    • Selected podcasts with testimonials and practical advice of young colleagues for students, temporary teachers, or trainees starting out in the teaching profession and about to teach for the first time.

 

  • France Université Numérique with the Alliance Française Paris Île-de-France, MOOCs “Vivre en France”

France Université Numérique (FUN) is a French public digital platform that offers free online courses (MOOCs) created by French universities, grandes écoles, and public institutions.

The platform contains MOOCs created by the Alliance Française Paris Île-de-France, to help you to review your French to communicate in daily life and complete administrative procedures.

Three learning paths are available for free at levels A1, A2, and B1. The B1 path includes 22 A1-level units, each offering four hours of self-paced learning on different themes: daily life, French culture, civic life, or administrative procedures.

 

  • TAPIF To Teacher, start building your teaching career while in France

TAPIF to Teacher (T2T) is a training program designed for current U.S. participants of the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) who aspire to pursue careers in language education.

Offered by Villa Albertine with the support of Albertine Foundation, T2T provides up to 100 full scholarships for a university certificate in Didactique du FLE through Université de Nanterre or Enseignement d’une discipline par intégration d’une langue étrangère through Université Bordeaux Montaigne.

The program is fully online, allowing assistants to earn up to 12 transferable graduate credits toward a Master’s in Teaching at U.S. partner universities, such as Boston University, Concordia College, and others.

This unique opportunity enables TAPIF participants to enhance their teaching skills and credentials while immersing themselves in French culture.

2. Teaching Across Cultures

  • France Education International Online Platform: FEI+

The Department of Language Assistants and Mobility at France Education International has developed two short (3-hour), online, free, and badge-awarding training modules on its FEI+ platform. These modules are designed to help you better understand your role and responsibilities and to make the most of your experience!

Discover the training modules now, based on your profile:

 

  • Ensemble en France by France Terre d’Asile

France Terre d’Asile offers on its platform Ensemble en France a wide range of engaging, humorous, and moving resources to help you learn about school life and intercultural experiences in France.

You will find a sometimes surprising list of social situations from everyday life, along with clear explanations.

You will also discover colorful idiomatic expressions—trust us, they’re commonly used in everyday conversation. So have fun learning them!

Finally, some general culture on France cannot hurt. Particularly when it’s a quiz, from easy to relatively hard. Dare to test your knowledge!

 

  • La Digitale, Tools for Creative Teaching

For new teachers, La Digitale offers a wide range of simple, intuitive tools suited to various teaching contexts. Here are a few reasons why these resources can be particularly helpful:

    • Free: All tools are available at no cost, with no ads and no collection of personal data.
    • Simple: The applications are designed to be user-friendly, even for those who are not tech-savvy.
    • Creative and versatile: La Digitale offers a broad selection of apps to create interactive, collaborative, and multimedia content, such as quizzes, mind maps, comic strips, presentations, collaborative walls, distraction-free videos, and more.

3. English Teaching Materials

  • English for Schools by the Centre national d’enseignement à distance (CNED)

English for Schools is a free, online platform designed to support the teaching and learning of English in French primary and middle schools. It offers a wealth of resources for both students and educators, including interactive games, videos, audio files, and cultural content.

The platform is maintained by the Centre national d’enseignement à distance (CNED), a French public institution under the dual supervision of the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

 

  • TeachingEnglish, a Comprehensive Suite of Free Resources Tailored for English Language Teachers

TeachingEnglish is managed by the British Council. It offers free resources designed to support educators in their teaching practices. The site provides over 400 full lesson plans and numerous shorter activities that cater to primary, secondary, and adult learners, covering a wide range of topics and themes.

You can find more resources from the British Council here.

 

  • Thot Cursus, Canadian Platform to Support Educators and Foster Digital Literacy

Thot Cursus is a Canadian platform dedicated to promoting learning in all its forms. For teaching assistants and future teachers, you might be interested in these directories of Educational Videos, or playground games ideas to learn tips and tricks with kids.

 

  • OER Commons, a Digital Library Offering Open Educational Resources

If you’re looking for over 60,000 resources beyond just ESL, OER Commons is a digital library offering open educational resources. You can find ready-made materials and lesson plans related to cultural studies, history, and social sciences that can be integrated into your English lessons to provide cultural context.

The website is maintained by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, a nonprofit organization based in California.

 

  • ISLCollective, Worksheets and Printable Resources Created by Teachers

If you are seeking worksheets and printable resources, ISLCollective is a great place to find high-quality, teacher-created materials for classroom use.

The website is primarily community-driven, with teachers sharing their resources.

4. Next Steps

  • TAPIF Alumni Association, Join to Stay Up to Date

TAPIF Alumni Association is a recently created nationwide community for former TAPIF language assistants returning from France. Dedicated to bringing alumni together through shared experiences and promoting French language and cultural education, connect with them to stay up to date on upcoming news and events. Join the TAA here.

 

  • AATF – American Association of Teachers of French

AATF, the American Association of Teachers of French, is devoted to the needs of French teachers at all levels. We strongly encourage you to following them on social media to be informed of events, webinars, and get access to curated resources here.

For future teachers, explore this playlist I love teaching French, sharing testimonies and experiences from French teachers in the United States, and this workshop presenting “L’enseignement du français aux États-Unis” and exchanging on the differences with teaching French in Japan.

 

  • French Teaching Fast Track, Support and Training for French Language Teaching Careers

The French Teaching Fast Track program, a collaborative initiative by Villa Albertine, ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages), and AATF (American Association of Teachers of French), supports individuals interested in pursuing a career in French language education.

This comprehensive 70-hour online curriculum is tailored for advanced, native, and heritage French speakers across the United States. The program includes a three-phase training designed for fluent French speakers nationwide, culminating in the connection with a mentor from your state and a personalized learning plan that outlines the steps required to obtain a teaching license.

Participants also receive up to four university credits toward an approved teacher preparation program, along with AATF membership and network development.

 

  • CAVILAM – Alliance Française, Discover FLE Teaching with Free Online Training and Tools

CAVILAM offers a free training course in French, requiring no prerequisites, delivered online and asynchronously, titled « Découvrez l’enseignement du français langue étrangère » (Discover Teaching French as a World Language). This training, lasting between 12 and 20 hours, includes four main modules and a quiz.

    • Module 1 : Connaître les principes et concepts clés de l’enseignement du FLE
    • Module 2 : Gérer et animer la classe
    • Module 3 : Exploiter des documents authentiques
    • Module 4 : Construire une séquence pédagogique

The training is available every few months and last about one month with classes available 24/7 during that timeframe.

Visit this page to find the upcoming session. Each time, it is possible to register for up to a few weeks before the end of the training.

Additionally, a free virtual classroom facilitation kit is available to support online teaching here.